


Turn and Fate

by NuMo



Series: Chrysalis [2]
Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F, Probably jossed come April, kidfic?, mebbe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-28
Updated: 2012-11-28
Packaged: 2017-11-19 18:51:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/576518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuMo/pseuds/NuMo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers? Well, if you look closely. On the other hand, if you hadn't looked closely at Warehouse 13, you wouldn't be here, right?</p><p>This is the second part of the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/30332">Chrysalis Series</a>. It doesn't work without having read part one, I'm afraid.</p><p>---</p><p>Let us embark on a journey of two women and a whopping challenge. Meet parents and siblings, witness a nervous breakdown, night-time revelations and exuberant laughter, and see how our protagonists avoid thinking, shopping, and kissing (for some reason). Contains several instances of the reading of stories. And a kiss. Eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Last time on “Warehouse 13 of NuMo’s little corner of the universe”

For a moment, the tableau held – Claudia staring at the Warehouse’s caretaker in a mixture of accusation and expectation, Helena looking at Myka’s turned back, Pete and Steve exchanging a confused glance. Then Mrs. Frederic turned to the person in she had brought with her. “Ms. Sperling, I think now would be a good moment.”

The woman, small and slim and with determined grey eyes, nodded once.

~~~

Helena was standing a ways off in the shadows, watching a female figure stoop down and cup the cheek of a very severely injured child while ambulance men swarmed around the site of the accident. Where the child had been groaning, at times yelling, only moments before, there was an almost unearthly silence now that the woman held him. 

~~~

“No time, Agent Wells,” the woman called Laura pressed from between clenched teeth, finally on her feet. “Hold him still.” She crossed over to the three of them, then stretched out her arms, every motion obviously painful but also, and equally obviously, deliberate. Her hands cupped Arthur Nielsen’s face, left, right, pulling the struggling man inexorably closer until his forehead rested against hers. Upon contact, shudders began running through both of them, growing more pronounced with every passing second. 

When the woman finally let go, both she and Artie dropped to their knees, the latter pulling the two agents holding his arms with him to the ground. 

~~~

The woman laughed, once, a sound utterly devoid of humor. *Fine. Have it your way.* She made as if to turn again, and when Helena moved closer to prevent her from doing so, she found her face grabbed by two strong, too-warm hands and had barely time to deplore falling for what must surely be the oldest trick in any book before-

They both reeled as they broke apart. *What the devil…* Helena’s voice was raw. Small wonder.

*You wanted to know what I did. This is what I do.*

~~~

Suddenly, a smile that could only be called beatific spread on the woman’s exhausted face; a moment later Helena felt Myka protectively taking up station up beside her. “Don’t repeat my mistake,” Laura told the English agent, eyes filled with more light than just the sunshine falling through the windows.

~~~

“Hey, H.G., I think that’s for you.” Pete reached out an envelope to her as she walked up to the car. “It was wedged behind the wiper. Look, it says ‘Helena’.” 

~~~

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Helena said again, eyes riveted to the sign that identified the building. “This is a municipal institution for children and teenagers,” she whispered tonelessly. “You don’t need to be Pete Lattimer to get a certain… premonition about why I was sent here.”

~~~

 

And now, read on…


	2. Chapter 2

“You what?!” 

Myka held the phone away from her ear, grimacing a little before repeating, patiently, “We need another ticket, Claudia. For a kid of four years. I _think_ we’ll make the train; if not, I’ll get back to you.” She ended the call and turned back to where Helena sat, utterly still, white-knuckled fingers clenched around the scarf Myka had given her when they had set out. When they had been two agents, two, well, _friends_ , and not two legal guardians of a four-year-old girl. She knelt in front of the other woman, looking up at her with more reassurance than she felt. “We’ll figure this out, Helena.”

Quite apart from the uneasy question why Laura Sperling had sprung this on them in the first place, Myka was well aware of the wheels of German bureaucracy turning around them; predictable, precise, implacable. A simple, harmless form, delivered on the strength of a plea and a whim, had set things in motion in a way that usually would result in at least objection, if not an active attempt on Myka’s part to solve this without getting the two of them so deeply involved. But this did not involve only Helena and her, did it. 

Myka had taken one look at the girl’s – Livia’s – file and decided that there was no way in hell she’d tell the kid that these two strangers would leave her behind like her mother had. They’d figure this out, they just needed to get the girl on the plane with them, and set her up at the B&B, and the rest of the team certainly wouldn’t… well. They would figure this out was what they, all of them, would do.

And now a pre-school kid was packing her belongings (or had them packed, more likely), for a flight across an ocean and eight time zones and into a completely different life and jeez, did she even speak English?, and troubled brown eyes were locked on the fringes of Myka’s scarf, looking more lost than she had ever seen them. Helena’s lips moved. “What was that?” Myka asked.

“I… I’m not sure I am up to this, Myka,” Helena repeated, still not meeting Myka’s eyes. “Ask me to grease the world’s axis, or to retrieve a piece of the aurora to use as curtains, but…” She shrugged one shoulder. Her mouth opened again, moved, found no words, closed. 

“Helena, look at me,” Myka urged, laying her hands loosely on the other woman’s knees, to the left and right of Helena’s own, still-clenched fingers. “Look at me,” she repeated, even more softly. She had seen Helena this thrown exactly one time, and that had been because of a child, too, if an imaginary one. Usually, the air of self-possession and poise the English agent exuded seemed completely impenetrable, but Myka was well aware how much of that was plain (if good) acting. It was a role they both excelled in, after all, even if they approached it from slightly different angles.

“What kind of life would we be imposing upon this child?” Helena burst out suddenly, looking over the top of Myka’s head and flinging out one hand towards the door the caretaker had disappeared through. It landed in her hair and buried itself with a motion that was achingly familiar. 

“One that is, in all probability, more caring than the public welfare system.” Myka’s low growl brooked no nonsense, and it served its purpose – Helena finally met her eyes, astonishment slackening her jaw. “I’ve read her file. We can do that, as her guardians,” she added quickly, “and Helena, she’s been with three different foster families in her four years. Whatever we’ll come up with, and we will come up with something, it can’t be worse than that.”

She watched Helena blink once, twice, three times, the last one longer than the two before. Then the other woman inhaled sharply and nodded, lips twitching slightly. “You are, in all probability, right, Myka. As usual.” The next breath was deeper, and more level. “You do realize that the first official document that mentions the two of us together doesn’t list my actual name, do you.” Helena’s slight smirk was back, and somewhere not so deep inside her, Myka’s heart breathed relief at the sight.

“It does make us this child’s parents, though,” she shot back. “Or as good as.”

“So what does that make _us?_ ” Helena quipped instantly, crooking a finger first at Myka, then at herself. 

Myka laughed aloud. 

They would figure this out.


	3. Chapter 3

Sometimes Myka wondered how many personas answered to the name Helena G. Wells. In the space of not even half of one morning, she’d seen Helena overcome, thinking hard (slight frown, fiddling fingers and absent eyes a familiar and incredibly welcome sight), resolved. And now she was watching her stroll the maze of Cologne’s public transport system, a child on her hand, as if there was absolutely nothing to it. 

It had nearly torn Helena apart when the child had been brought in by her current guardian. Myka hadn’t needed to see her face to know that much – one good look at the girl’s dark curls and heart-shaped face had been enough. Helena’s shoulders had hunched, briefly, then straightened again, and Myka had been certain of two more things: one, that Helena was smiling at the child, and two, that, while it was a truer smile than most Helena gave, her heart ached while she gave it. 

So Livia Sperling did not have long, wavy hair or hazel eyes. No, those eyes were grey, and the hair not even chin-length; an unruly shock of curls, tumbling every which way when the caretaker had removed the kid’s hat. But the frank curiosity with which Livia had looked up at the two strangers, the quick, unhesitant, open smile she had given them, held a similarity that even Myka, who knew Christina Wells only from a picture and a few disconnected stories, couldn’t help but notice. She’d stepped to Helena’s side, and, true enough, a hand had found hers, squeezing once, almost painfully hard, and remaining there throughout the rest of their interaction with the kid, her guardian and the institution’s manager.

A flood of German words had swapped back and forth, then Livia’s guardian had handed over a stack of notes and documents and the shamefully small suitcase Myka was currently carrying. Myka had asked the receptionist when the rest of Livia’s belongings would be delivered – they _had_ been asked to provide an address, after all. The receptionist had returned nothing but a blank look, though, and Myka had quickly explained things away as a misunderstanding, citing her poor German.

It wasn’t, not really. True: the romance languages were more her métier, well, okay, and Russian. But you couldn’t help understand quite a bit of German if you knew your English and your Latin, right? Not the structure or grammar, of course, but enough of the vocabulary to be annoyingly close to understanding what people were saying, especially if they spoke to a four-year-old.

“Deine Mami hat uns gebeten, für dich zu sorgen,” Helena was saying at the moment, holding Livia on her lap in the streetcar’s seat. From the way Helena’s eyes had fluttered shut when the girl had used the term ‘Mami’ for the first time, Myka would have sworn that it had been Christina Well’s way of addressing her mother, too, and yet Helena had born it with surprising strength. And now she used it herself, and didn’t even bat an eye while she did.

Myka had done her share of babysitting as a teenager; she knew how to relate to a kid. But Helena made it seem the most natural thing in the world to hold a child’s hand, look after her when boarding a bus, take her into one’s lap when the bus became too crowded. Then again, Helena had been a mother hers- Myka shook her head to stop that thought, then smiled at Helena reassuringly when the other woman, noticing the movement, shot her a questioning look. _It’s nothing. It’s okay._

Whatever Helena’s secret was, it seemed to work on the kid – Livia was taking to her new guardian with disarming acceptance, as far as that could be determined after so little time. True, her stuffed toy, a gangly, visibly well-loved rabbit called Herr Hase, seemed to be an integral part of that – Livia’s former guardian had taken great care to impress upon them its importance on the kid’s well-being. And it figured, right? In a world that held not a year’s worth of permanence with regard to people, a stuffed toy would be your choice for a tried and tested friend. Myka had already decided to go find some books, first chance she got, on the effect of being raised by foster parents and/or in children’s homes, and she suspected that even with Herr Hase’s help the kid’s sunny demeanor probably wouldn’t last; but she knew enough of kids in general to cherish it while it did.

A movement of the child drew her eyes. “Was ist das?” Livia asked, prodding the locket visible at Helena’s neckline. Myka’s breath stopped. The kid’s question wasn’t hard to understand, was it. 

Helena smiled a little sadly, then used the hand not curled around the child’s back to tug the locket fully loose. “Das ist ein…” she broke off, searching for the right word. “Schau, man kann es öffnen,” she went on, giving up with a shrug and a smile at Myka. “Hilfst du mir? Es braucht zwei Hände.” Apparently, she’d asked for Livia’s help; Myka watched Helena hold patiently still until the kid had figured which way to join Helena’s hand in opening the locket. 

Livia looked at the picture inside, then turned to face Myka, and beamed. “Das bist Du!” she squealed, and again, Myka couldn’t find air, but for a completely different reason. 

_That’s you._

When? How… – _why?!_ Livia’s attention was already back on the picture, so the girl didn’t notice the look passing between the two women, of utter surprise and gentle softening and the promise of an explanation, soon. That last one, Myka didn’t quite believe. Not because she didn’t think Helena would explain, but because she knew life’s habits. After all, fate, or bad karma, or some cruel trickster god, or whatever (certainly not an artifact; Myka had looked into that), had amassed a bill of so many unanswered questions, so many unresolved issues, and so few chances at actually tackling them that, really, it wasn’t even funny anymore.

“Wer ist das?” Livia asked then, pointing at the other half of the medallion, and for the third time, Myka felt her breath catch. But Helena’s calmness while telling Livia about ‘Christina’ and ‘meine Tochter’ and ‘nein’, and the visible _moment_ that passed between a mother who had lost her daughter and a daughter who had never known her mother told Myka that, battered though Helena Wells might be, this was not breaking her.

And a small thought raised its head that, maybe, this might be a way to healing, even.

If they were allowed to continue, that was. Heavens knew what would happen if the Regents continued to send Helena all over the place all the time. Well, they wouldn’t, Myka decided. Surely at least Mrs. Lattimer would understand the need of a child, this child, for steadiness, for stability, for-

“Helena, we need to get off here,” she suddenly noticed – first stop after crossing the river. She really wished she didn’t have to interrupt the two, but, well, here they were, with barely fifteen minutes to go until the train left. Paperwork seemed an equally ferocious time-eater in Germany than elsewhere, and they’d made a detour to a supermarket, too, for snacks and drinks that would see a child through train and plane.

“Oh, richtig,” Helena answered absentmindedly, then chuckled at herself, or maybe Myka’s baffled expression. “You better get used to that,” she smirked, “or possibly not – it might be beneficial if you didn’t. That way Livia and I would have our own secret language.” She stood in a fluent motion, tugging at the child’s hand. “Hier steigen wir aus, Livia.”

“Okay,” the child answered in two-tone, shrugged sing-song, grabbing the little backpack that held drink, book, and Herr Hase. “Und dann?”

“Dann steigen wir in einen Zug, und dann in ein Flugzeug,“ Helena answered, leaving Myka with a suitcase and completely at a loss. By default and instinct, she fell back on what knew how to do well: piloting the three of them through the maze of mezzanines and walkways and endless stairs. 

At what simply had to be the last of those, Livia huffed in a way even Myka understood. “ _Noch_ eine Treppe!” A thought hit Myka, one that instantly felt right. So much so that acting on it happened just as promptly: It took Myka but a moment to turn, wink at Helena, drop the suitcase at her feet, grab the kid and hoist her up to Myka’s shoulders. Then, grinning, Myka set out, a squealing kid’s hands in her curls, stopping only when they were halfway up the stairs, because a second set of footsteps was inexplicably missing. 

Helena was standing, openmouthed and staring, looking so totally stunned that Myka laughed out loud. A look of sheer and utter _longing_ crossed the other woman’s face then, only to be replaced by the kind of smirk that Myka knew to be Helena’s front-of-last-resort. Her laughter softened instantly, and she stretched out her hand, careful to keep a good grip on Livia’s right leg with the other. “Coming?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My little dictionary:   
> “Deine Mami hat uns gebeten, für dich zu sorgen.” - Your mommy asked us to take care of you.  
> Herr Hase - Mister Bunny (yes. what!?! I'll name plush toys any way I damn well please.)  
> “Was ist das?” - What is that?  
> “Das ist ein…” - That is a…  
> “Schau, man kann es öffnen.” - Look, it opens. (lit.: one can open it)  
> “Hilfst du mir? Es braucht zwei Hände.” - Will you help me? It needs two hands.  
> “Wer ist das?” - Who is that?  
> ‘meine Tochter’ - my daughter  
> ‘nein’ - no (honestly???)  
> “Oh, richtig.” - Oh, right.  
> “Hier steigen wir aus, Livia.” - This is where we get off, Livia.  
> “Und dann?” - And then?  
> “Dann steigen wir in einen Zug, und dann in ein Flugzeug.“ - Then we'll board a train, and then an airplane.  
> “ _Noch_ eine Treppe!” - A _nother_ staircase!


	4. Chapter 4

Myka leaned back into her seat, trying to find a measure of comfort – too little legroom, as usual; shouldn’t at least transatlantic flights offer more of it? She puffed out a breath. If she’d thought the paperwork at the children’s home had been bad, it had been a goddamn walk in the park compared to the airport controls. 

Really, the only redeeming feature of this day had been the couple who simply had _insisted_ Helena and Livia take their seats even though it meant that Herr und Frau Schröder spent the eleven-hour flight to Dallas fifteen aisles apart from each other. “We are married for more than twenty years,” Herr Schröder had joked, accent thick and choppy, “we will survive eleven hours. But a child needs her mother.” Then he had made faces at Livia, grinning like the Cheshire Cat until the kid had giggled, and Myka had painstakingly refrained from thinking about just who he thought might be Livia’s mother, and why he thought so, and- and she was _not_ thinking about it.

Now Livia was sitting in the window seat, tickled pink (and telling Herr Hase) about the whole business of airports and planes and flying in general. Myka only hoped it would last, but asking for a kid’s enthusiasm to span eleven hours of flying was probably stretching things to breaking point. At least Claudia had thought of, and immediately suggested, retrieving a couple more playthings from Livia’s suitcase before check-in.

The team’s youngest member, true to form, had been quickest to accept the presence of a four-year-old German girl in their midst. Steve had been his usual reserved self; there simply was no telling what he thought about the whole business. Myka thought he seemed cautiously positive about the whole thing, but also pretty nervous. Maybe the kid’s name got to him, being just one letter short of his sister’s? She’d never really talked with Steve about Olivia, but Claudia had hinted at… things. Things that had made Myka very carefully avoid asking further questions, neither of Claudia nor of Steve. The two of them seemed to be working it out in their own fashion, so it was really not her place to intrude.

Artie had nearly had a heart-attack, of course. He’d been already starting towards Helena, who was readjusting Livia’s jacket and backpack after the ride on Myka’s shoulders, when Myka had stepped in his way. They hadn’t exchanged a single word; a glance loaded with calm determination had gone one way, and, after a long moment, a grudging nod had come the other. And that had been that. 

And Pete? It had taken _minutes_ for Myka’s partner’s eyes to return to normal (alright, so “goggling” was second normal in Warehouse Agent Lattimer, but anyway). Then he had lost no time in starting to charm the living daylights out of the little girl, never letting a puny obstacle like the lack of a common language stand in his way. Livia had loved him before they’d even boarded the train.

Myka would have to have A Talk with him, at some point in the near future, about spoiling the kid rotten barely an hour after they’d been introduced. Still, she was glad about the five or so children’s books he’d bought at Frankfurt Airport, and even gladder that Helena knew German well enough (well, probably. God, _hopefully_. And didn’t Artie-?) to be able to read them to Livia, later. For now, the English agent was studying the leaflet on in-flight entertainment, trying to, in her words, ‘ascertain what would be appropriate for a four-year-old’, pointedly ignoring both Pete’s and Claudia’s advice from three aisles away. Her ‘professed ignorance and need for consultation’ (her words, again) on this or that program required her to lean across the armrest quite frequently, assailing Myka with her solidity and warmth and scent every time she did. 

Myka chose not to thi- she was really doing too much of this, wasn’t she? There was a name for that kind of thing, she knew, but this, too, she chose to ignore. For now. She would work through it later. Eventually. She had other things to worry about right now than sitting thinking about the time when she had stretched out her hand only to encounter… nothing, where there should have been something. Nothing, not even cold, or a fizzle of electricity. Well, of course light wouldn’t impact on her nerves that way, but- No, she would _not_ think of it. Not when it was more than a year in the past. Not when she-

Livia let out a whoop as the plane started to accelerate, and Myka couldn’t help but look at Helena because she knew for a fact that this bit, the inexorable might of twenty-first-century turbine engines _pushing_ them into their seats, was Helena’s favorite part about flying. And sure enough, as always when fate (or karma, trickster gods, or even the odd punctual check-in) had chosen to award them adjacent seats on a plane, Helena’s fingers curled around Myka’s, pressing just as hard. Helena’s eyes sparkled with a wild glint that wasn’t new either, and Myka found herself grinning madly to see these two pair of eyes, so different in color, so alike in what they held.

Moments like these, Myka decided. If there couldn’t be permanence, moments like these made this goddamn rollercoaster of their lives at least bearable. Maybe actually a bit more than that, even.

The trip took more than just the eleven hours to Dallas, of course. In fact, even before the last leg to Univille it was rapidly approaching the twenty-four-hour mark, in the course of which the team had been witness to the full spectrum of unfettered four-year-old emotions, from the most adorable laughing fit to a decidedly less attractive tantrum nurtured by fear, unfamiliarity and fatigue. Pete – _Pete_ had _shone_ on that one, patiently hugging the struggling kid for what seemed like ages, repeating ‘it’s okay’ over and over like a mantra until Livia had finally quietened (or given up) and fallen asleep, clutching Herr Hase like a lifeline. 

What with layovers and transfers and getting two rental cars and a goddamn booster seat on short notice (so of course you _usually_ knew in advance that you’d be traveling with a child, but what was ‘usual’ or ‘of course’, in the life of a Warehouse agent, huh? What?! – Claudia had done the talking after that), it was almost midnight before they saw the B &B’s lights. And then the fact hit Myka that these were only the exterior lights, programmed or on sensors, and the building’s inside was dark as a… no, she wouldn’t use that metaphor. This place was no tomb. It wasn’t.

“Well, here we are, then,” Claudia exhaled, turning off the ignition. Pete pulled in behind them just as they were unloading the trunk, and promptly busied himself with getting the still-sleeping Livia out of her seat and into the house (and thanking God for small mercies). Myka was near reeling with tiredness herself, and so it happened that she didn’t notice where he’d put the girl up until she stumbled into her room to find _both_ of them sprawled bonelessly on her bed. 

“Now isn’t that a lovely sight,” Helena quipped from behind Myka’s shoulder, putting down Livia’s baggage and her own overnighter. 

Myka shook her head, frowning. “But… why did he…?”

“I suppose he assumed, dar- Myka.” Helena’s smile drew Myka’s thoughts away from the question why she hadn’t gone through with calling Myka ‘darling’, as usual. “He does keep insisting your bed is the largest of all of ours; I’m sure I wouldn’t dare comment, of course.”

A smirk. A goddamn smirk, and an eyebrow raised so delicately – Helena G. Wells was definitely way too completely on top of things. And she had no right to be; she had to be just as jetlagged, right?

“But why didn’t he-?” Myka broke off, unsure how to express her confusion. “I mean _you_ … you’re…” Helena’s bed was just as big, right? 

Helena sighed, shoulders slumping slightly. “To be quite frank, Myka, the prospect of being alone with the child, at least tonight, is… less than enticing.” Even half-asleep, Myka’s senses were alert enough to recognize plain _need_ when it stared her in the face. She stood for a moment, blinking, then nodded quickly and crossed to where Pete’s legs were dangling over the edge of the bed.

“Help me get him out, will you?”

Two eyebrows traveled upwards this time, and lips were quirking again, too, damnit. “With pleasure.”

It took a while, and of course the commotion of getting Pete vertical woke Livia too, and of course that meant they had to contend with an over-excited four-year-old as well as with a jetlagged, well, five-year-old. After finally closing the door behind Pete, and then immersing herself in getting Livia to stop her babbling and calm down again (not to mention into her pajamas), it took a while to register on Myka that Helena hadn’t touched her own luggage either, and seemed quite comfortable puttering around in Myka’s room. 

“Just get ready for bed,” she answered to Myka’s questioning look, “and then I’ll read the two of you a story.” She smiled fleetingly, then said something in German, probably repeating what she’d just told Myka. With a resigned shake of her head, Myka went to brush her teeth – she was really too tired, and Helena really too not tired for this to be a fair fight by any stretch of the imagination. She returned to a kid and a plush toy, already settled in on the far right of the bed and, on the other side of the bedside-table reading lamp, a writer in a chair, waiting to read. 

Slipping in behind Livia, Myka felt her mind filling with the strangest sense of wonder at the thought of a child in her bed and Helena next to it and all three of them poised for a bedtime story. So many things felt in their place that Myka resolutely pushed her thoughts away from all the things that didn’t, letting the foreign words lull her into a cocoon of golden lamplight and a soft voice and the sounds of an old house settling down for the night.


	5. Chapter 5

The next thing Myka knew, someone was walking around the bed on almost-silent feet. Again.

“My sweet Myka,” a voice unencumbered by any form of pretense whispered, barely ten inches from her face, making the hairs on Myka’s neck rise. It sounded so… so different, so unencumbered, so much closer to the core of who Myka knew was speaking. “If you had any idea just what this picture of you next to a sleeping child is doing to me – if you had _any_ idea of how utterly, utterly peaceful it feels to have read the both of you to sleep…” the voice stopped, and Myka carefully went on feigning the deep, regular breaths of sleep. 

This was the sixth time Helena was taking the opportunity to pour out her heart because she thought Myka was sleeping. And of course, Myka _had_ been asleep the first time, at least in the beginning. But just as she’d trained for a light sleep, she’d honed her ability to fake a deeper one convincingly. After all, you never knew when it paid to have the other party think you were still sleeping, right? 

That first night, Myka had kept her silence, sensing that Helena had needed to say whatever she’d been trying to say. And then she had kept her silence because of the sheer intensity of emotions heard and evoked. And the next morning, she had kept her silence because, well. How would you-? … _how?_ If someone you worked with, someone who flirted shamelessly with, well, not just with you, but somehow more, _differently,_ with you than with anyone else; if someone who you _knew_ was just about one mishap away from going to pieces – if that someone were to bare her very soul to you in the depth of night and then casually _smile_ at you in the morning, how would you ever address that?

So she hadn’t. And that had meant that she couldn’t, when it happened for the second, and third, and forth, and fifth time. 

“If you only knew how this day has, in equal parts, both soothed and terrified my heart,” Myka heard Helena say, and yes, she’d been thinking the same thing, hadn’t she? “If you knew how it has taken me by the hand and lead me to a place between utter bliss and deepest ache…”

She couldn’t help herself. The memory of Helena, looking up at her from the bottom of a flight of stairs- “Maybe I do,” Myka said, her voice low and oddly hoarse.

She heard a sudden intake of breath, louder than both their words had been. Then she could feel Helena’s shudder through the very frame of the bed. 

“I’m sorry, Helena,” she went on, “I didn’t want to frighten you. But…” Myka opened her eyes, turning her head to the left. Helena had left the light burning, for Livia’s sake probably, but Myka’s head was all but eclipsing it – she couldn’t see, much less read, Helena’s eyes where she was hovering, half-crouched, between the wall and Myka’s armchair. “Helena?” Myka propped herself up on her elbows to allow the light past, to look at the other woman more fully – this was not the time to imagine or guess Helena’s facial expression.

Helena stared back at her, slack-jawed, eyes all pupils in the soft lamplight. Trembling, as if the very conflict of fight-or-flee was rooting her to the spot. Slowly, half afraid that a too-quick motion would startle Helena away, Myka started to reach out towards the other woman, realizing, mid-way, that she had no idea where to put her hand – hair? too patronizing; cheek? too intimate; shoulder – shoulder was good; shoulder it was. 

“Don’t be afraid, please,” she said. “It’s just… I heard you, and you were wishing I knew, and… I… I mean I do. I do know. I think. So I thought I’d better tell you, to… I don’t know, to ease your heart?” _Stop babbling, Bering. Focus._ Myka took a deep breath, then remembered her hand, squeezed Helena’s shoulder, and pulled it back to the safety of her lap. “Helena, I _know_. It’s okay. Nobody expects this to be easy on you. We’ll figure this out. Trust me; we will.”

“You said that before.” Helena’s voice was too strangled to sound like her usual snarking self, but at least she was trying, Myka thought. 

“Well, it’s what I’m good at,” she quipped back, trying to make it easier for the shaken woman opposite her.

It seemed to work. “It’s what you get envied and applauded for,” Helena replied, a little steadier.

Myka snorted slightly. “Don’t know about that,” she smirked, then shrugged, “I guess it’s what I get paid for.”

“Ah yes. And you excel in that task, of course, as in your other: to keep safe the things you’ve ‘figured out’.” Despite all common sense, Myka could _hear_ the inverted commas snick into place. She was about to chuckle when Helena went on, “It takes my breath away how, just by virtue of being who you are, you can make me feel kept safe, Myka.” Helena’s voice hadn’t changed a bit; it was still light, still nonchalant. Her eyes, though… weren’t. Then they flickered away, landing on the hardwood floor, following invisible patterns. “I wish I could do the same for you, you know.”

“But you have,” Myka protested instantly. “You did. I mean, flying into the air right before a car runs you over?” Her lightness didn’t go over so well this time, she could see that. _So change track._ “Helena, don’t you see? I know you. You said it yourself, back then in the clearing, don’t you remember? I know you, and I trust you.” And she would have thought the goddamn chess game had settled that.

“And I betrayed your trust,” Helena said with a sigh, the words coming so quickly that they seemed… rehearsed, almost. Not in that they didn’t ring true – no. If anything, Helena sounded, well, weary. Alright, knowing how Myka knew her, it did seem a given that Helena would fixate on it; that she would run and rerun that particular little conversation in her mind until prompt and response came automatically. Suddenly, Myka decided to have the rest of it play out in a way that Helena, in all her considerable creativity, might not have imagined; if only for the sake of being a step ahead for once. Even if she was not sure where that step would lead, or where she wanted it to lead.

“You spend way too much time with nothing but your own thoughts for company, you know,” she said, quirking her lips into a little smile. Helena’s eyes snapped up, a frown creasing her eyebrows almost ridiculously delicately. “Are you any good at breaking habits?” Myka went on, trying to concentrate on something else than how it was completely not appropriate how attractive she found Helena, baffled. “‘Cause if you’re not, I’m going to tire of this kind of self-flagellation before soon.”

“You’re…” Words seemed to fail Helena; _no small feat_ , Myka congratulated herself. Suddenly, a bubble of soft laughter burst out of Helena’s bewilderment. “I know this will sound regrettably American, but… you _are_ incredible, Myka Bering.” A hand came up, one slender finger outstretched in admonishment, “and if I ever catch you so much as whispering that I had to resort to that expression in my astonishment, I will disavow the very breath I would have had to have taken to utter it.” 

Clamping down on a laugh of her own, Myka shook her head weakly, trying to convey her agreement to these terms – really, she would agree to _anything_ Helena asked of her this way. 

Helena’s face grew soft. “I have been informed that, and I quote, clinging to my pain was unfair, ill-mannered, and counterproductive. It appears your argument goes right along with that assessment.” She shook out her hair in a quick motion – tension relief, Myka knew. “It is… a novel approach.” Helena’s mouth twitched ever so slightly on the last words.

“Which should be right up your alley, considering,” Myka agreed, having finally wrestled her laugh down into a smile. 

Helena nodded solemnly. “Strangely enough, spending a day with a child who looks to me for guidance and safe-keeping, even knowing that this is to be more than just a day-long matter…” she sighed, but not nearly as heavily as Myka would have feared. “It wasn’t as… haunting as I had feared. Not that it was easy; never that, but…”

“It wasn’t such a bad thing, was it,” Myka agreed again. It had been heartwarming to see Helena enjoy Livia’s company. Thinking about the price of that joy could wait, for all Myka cared right this moment. “Facing up to pain doesn’t necessarily mean being broken by it, Helena,” she continued as gently as she could. “And I think part of you is ready to face it and let it go.” And it didn’t seem to be only the sudden intrusion of Livia which had brought this change about. No, this was… bigger. Whatever had happened in Berlin (or maybe before; she hadn’t seen Helena in such a long time), it seemed to have kicked loose all sorts of things. 

With knitted brow and narrowed eyes, Helena thought about Myka’s words for a moment. Then she quickly shook her head, “Not quite.” And before Myka could get her protest in, Helena continued, “hear me out, Myka.” She ran one hand through her hair, leaning back against the striped armchair and gazing at the floor. “You are right in that I need to face my grief in order not to be crippled by it any longer. If anything, and in this, too, you are right, today has brought up the hope that, with all the time that has passed, I might have arrived at a place where I can finally do so. But,” she sighed, closing her eyes for a moment, “my grief is not one singular thing, you see. During all that time that I spoke of just now, it has grown through me like a vine, sending shoots and runners through all that I am. There is not a day that goes by, not a matter I consider, that isn’t touched by it. And though I might agree, by now, that clinging to it has not been the most sensible of choices, it has served as my… prop, if you will, for too long. If I were to let go of the whole of it at once, I’m afraid I would either crumble completely or cling to you in much the same way instead. 

“So, no, Myka.” Helena looked up intently. “I need to find my footing first. And having found it, I believe I need to let go of each individual branch and twig, as it were, and find healing that way.” She huffed a surprisingly free laugh, even rolled her eyes slightly. “I shall take heart, though, in the knowledge that practice makes perfect, and in the fact that I am quite certain of where and how to find aforementioned footing.” Her eyes found Myka’s again for a long moment. Then Helena pulled herself up and away from her corner, and said, “But I’m keeping you from sleep, my dear, that just won’t do.”

She was halfway to her feet before Myka had caught up with that. “Wait!” It came out too loudly, and the accompanying grab Myka made for Helena’s hand unbalanced both of them enough to almost land them on the floor. She threw an alarmed look over her shoulder immediately, expecting to encounter wide-awake grey eyes, then rolled her own in silent thanksgiving when she saw that Livia was still fast asleep. Then she realized she still held Helena’s hand – not that Helena seemed to mind. “Wait,” she repeated more softly, and tugged. When Helena took an obliging step in her direction, Myka scuttled backwards on the bed, tucking her legs underneath her, keeping up the steady pull until Helena had no choice but sit down or fall over. 

What with being so enviably and endlessly graceful, Helena of course chose the former, neatly folding herself onto the comforter in a way that other, more talented people would probably write poems about. Myka, fond but not fount of words, just found herself staring, and subsequently blushing. Which, in turn, brought a smirk to Helena’s face that, really, helped in no way. Hoping that looking someplace else might, Myka quickly tilted her head down and away, praying that the new angle would throw enough shadows on her face to hide its brilliance. 

Instead, slender fingers touched her hair, light as ghosts. Helena’s free hand, Myka realized, which brought attention to the fact that they were _still_ holding hands. It deepened her mortification to a point when, by rights, her blood vessels should just about- 

“I had wondered, you know,” Helena said, mercifully oblivious to Myka’s thoughts, “why you ever straightened them. They are so much more… exuberant this way.” She continued playing with the curl underneath her fingertips, in what seemed to Myka a completely unfairly unconcerned way – until she sneaked a look at her and realized that, far from being unaffected, Helena G. Wells appeared to be, in fact, mesmerized. 

It made saying the next words just that bit easier. “I did it because I thought it might remind me of you.”

Eyebrows arched. “Did you now.” A hand was pulled back from curls to fiddle for a moment with straighter strands. “I might be just a tad vain about my hair, you know.”

Myka chortled, softly enough this time to not even worry about waking the kid. “I might be just a tad aware of that.” And however reassuring it was that Helena’s mouth curled into a teasing smirk at a pretend English accent, that motion did not make Myka bold enough to give in to her own ever-growing wish (okay, desire. Need? Oh God…), to touch the wealth of perfection that was Helena’s hair.

Still, when words began falling from her lips, Myka had no idea where the courage for _them_ had come from. “I _want_ this,” she found herself saying. “You asked, back then, what this-” she sketched a vague circle in the air, encompassing the bed’s three occupants, “-would make us. I don’t know, Helena. I just know that I want it. I want you to be in my life, and I want there to be an ‘us’. I want _us_ , talking and laughing and working things out together and taking care of Livia and our family and I really, _really_ want to kiss you right now.” Sweet God Almighty, what on Earth had possessed her to-? On conversational auto-pilot out of sheer shock, Myka was already halfway towards an apology when she noticed that, instead of leaving in a huff as almost expected, Helena was leaning forwards, eyebrow arched and That Look on her face. _God, when she tilts her head like that-_

“My dearest Myka…” Eyes widening, lips parting, Helena leaned ever closer. _I’ll die_ , Myka’s thoughts raced, _I’ll simply die if she-_ “I never could deny you anything.” 

_Her breath – I can feel her breath on my lips, oh holy crap, when did she get this close?_ There was a part of Myka that _crooned_ at how sweet it tasted. A much louder part of her screamed to run away, run fast, run now!, but there wasn’t enough motor control left to move so much as her eyes away from where they were riveted to Helena’s, much less larger muscle groups. There _were_ a few stray neurons left that fired a command to swallow; somewhere, lungs managed to take a breath (to which the crooning bit responded with, significant pause, exuberance). Then vocal chords responded to something that patently wasn’t coming from any active part of Myka’s brain. “You realize that if we kiss now that means ‘yes’ to everything I just said?”

“Myka-” _oh my God, how can she sound like she’s… we’re not even kissing yet, for crying out l-_ “-if we kiss now it means ‘yes’ to everything, full stop.”

Myka would have sworn, afterwards (if anyone had dared to ask, if she would have deigned to answer), that Helena’s… _caress_ of a sentence had caused her ever-ticking mind to slow to a grinding (God, really? _That_ adjective?) halt, that things had been so goddamn _perfect_ , that she had felt the very _heat_ of Helena’s lips- 

“Helena?” a sleepy voice called out behind her.


	6. Chapter 6

“Ich muss mal,” was a phrase Myka recognized just fine by now. 

“Me too,” she answered, virtually leaping from the bed and holding out her hand to Livia. “Let’s go,” was another expression well-understood by both parties after more than twenty-four hours spent in each other’s company. Which was still too short a time for Livia to be taking her hand so trustingly, wasn’t it?

Myka took great care to show the kid how to find the bathroom and the light switches, once more relieved that Livia could do this on her own – she did remember changing diapers from babysitting days, she could do it, too, but she much preferred not to, in all honesty. Let that be Tracy’s worry for a whi- _Tracy!_ She had to tell her, didn’t she? And her parents? Another thought to be resolutely pushed away, at least for tonight. She should be making a list; they were driving out one another by now.

By the time the two of them made it back from the bathroom, Helena was at the window, hugging herself and staring at nothing, and Myka wondered, briefly, what was mirroring whom. She shooed that thought away, too, for being way too bleak when there were so much softer ones at hand, tucking in a little girl who looked at her with nothing but acceptance. Again making sure that Livia was watching, Myka flicked the switch of the bedside lamp, leaving only the illumination of waning moon and the night-light Claudia had wordlessly gone and retrieved from her room when they’d arrived at the B&B. 

“Okay?” she asked softly (a truly universal word), and the girl nodded. “Sleep well, Livia.”

“Schlaf gut,” Helena provided without turning around, and Myka repeated the foreign syllables as best she could. 

It was worth it, too, to see the kid’s face light up. “Schlaf gut, Myka,” Livia replied, voice already dreamy.

Helena didn’t turn around when Myka rose from the bed. She didn’t turn when Myka stepped up behind her. She didn’t so much as move a muscle when Myka slipped her arms around her, and it was then that Myka realized it was probably not for want of trying – as before, Helena was shaking too fiercely to move.

So, back to square one, then? How could she convince Helena that things were alright, that she didn’t need to be so afraid? She wasn’t really convinced of that, herself, after all; so her words would probably not really ring true, and if there was one thing she didn’t want, it was sounding insincere. Not with Helena. Not with all that had happened. 

Still searching for words, she almost didn’t realize that she didn’t actually need them. It wasn’t until Helena sighed that Myka noticed how the other woman was, bit by bit, breath by breath, relaxing against her. Pre-med training, eidetic memory and acute perception meant she could name every single muscle that slowly gave up its tension – just because of her embrace. It was… humbling. 

The trembling grew more pronounced, then stilled, just as Helena’s breaths became deeper with each passing moment. And just when Myka began to wonder if the other woman knew she was _literally_ growing taller as whatever weight had kept her down dropped from her shoulders, Helena sighed out a breath, ran her arms along Myka’s to lightly grasp her wrists, and tilted back her head until it rested against the curve of Myka’s neck.

“Safe,” she said softly, and Myka nodded, lost for words. “You, Myka,” Helena went on, “don’t need an artifact to cradle my heart and soothe my soul.” Myka recognized the description of what Laura Sperling had done to have raised Helena’s interest back in Berlin (and what else had Laura Sperling done? Had she used whatever artifact she’d had on Helena?). She nodded again to tell Helena that she understood the reference; Helena squeezed her wrists in reply. “I find myself wondering if I deserve your… care, at all.”

This seemed to be another well-worn track of Helena’s thoughts, and Myka resolved to meet it with another jolt. “Well, okay then,” she said with a lighthearted shrug, “so work for it.”

Helena inhaled suddenly, sharply, released the breath with another soft laugh, closed her hands more tightly around Myka’s. “As simple as that?” 

“Yup,” Myka nodded, “as simple as that.” And it totally wasn’t ‘care’ they were talking about, but that part could wait.

“But what about-”

“Helena,” Myka cut in immediately, knowing exactly where Helena was headed. “Helena, listen, just… just let the past be in the past, finally. You’ve redeemed yourself, again and a-”

“And who is the judge of that?” Helena asked, her reply coming so fast that, again, Myka was convinced this line of thought wasn’t new to her. “The Regents? You? Some God?” She turned, hands falling limply to her side. Myka had no intention of letting go on her part, but she sensed well enough that Helena wasn’t finished yet. “Even I understand that it needs to be myself,” Helena went on, proving Myka’s point, “and I am not there yet, not by far.”

“Okay, I do understand that,” Myka said quickly, “I do. But can we agree that _I_ consider you redeemed, trustworthy, all of that?”

“Sparing you further observations of self-flagellation, you mean?” Helena leaned slightly backwards into Myka’s arms. Her smile, when it came, was unlike any Myka had ever seen on her face. It seemed… tentative. Almost insecure. “It is a disagreeable pastime, isn’t it.”

Suddenly Myka laughed, at the absurdity of this situation. They were talking about working on a relationship – well, they were, weren’t they? – and feeling safe with each other and caring for a kid and surely being jetlagged had to have something to do with this; her thoughts were fraying at the edges, but this felt so- “We’re going at this all backwards,” she said. “We haven’t even kissed yet-”

“Much less done other things,” Helena, catching up immediately, cut in, head lowered, lips quirking.

God, the capacity of this woman to rebound to innuendo truly was incredible. Myka pointedly ignored the _multitude_ of images that Helena’s sly comment was evoking. “Or said other things,” she said instead, clinging to the point she was trying to make.

Helena’s eyes met hers, instantly back to serious. “Ah,” she said, tilting her head a little. “Do you need to hear those words, my Myka?”

Well, did she? ‘My Myka’, and the look in Helena’s eyes, and everything that Myka _knew_ had hovered unsaid between them for ages – wasn’t that enough? “Yes. No! I don’t know,” she said, looking down, then swiftly to the side when she realized just what she’d been looking at. “I know – well,” she amended quickly, “I’m pretty sure how you feel. I’m pretty sure you’re aware of how I feel-” how _did_ she feel? “-so maybe we don’t need to actually _say_ the words-” maybe Helena couldn’t, even, those were big words, right, even with her being a writer and with soul-baring being tonight’s cue and all, “-because maybe they wouldn’t even change things; or maybe they _would_ change th-” 

“I love you, Myka.” The words cut through Myka’s rambling and changed everything.

They gave her own words permission to abandon her. They gave her eyes and mouth permission to gape. They gave her hand, the one that wasn’t still intertwined with Helena’s, permission to rise and touch, with one trembling finger, a cheek, a jaw, a strand of hair. She was allowed to. She was, wasn’t she? Because of those words? “This feels unreal,” she said, “like a… like a dream,” because it did, and more than that: because she’d certainly never dreamed that this would ever happen, much less happen like this.

“I shall refrain from pinching you,” Helena quipped, “it leaves such ugly bruises.” Then she rose slowly on her toes, closing in until her lips were almost grazing Myka’s ear. “I could bite you, though.” The words, the voice, the _promise_ went straight south, which was at once terrifying and unbelievably exhilarating, but there was the not insignificant issue of a kid in her bed, and of almost thirty hours’ worth of journey completed today. “Another time, perhaps,” Helena said, as if reading Myka’s thoughts; her voice thankfully less suggestive, her body thankfully less close. She was almost out of the embrace, in fact, Myka realized suddenly. 

“Don’t go,” she said quickly, holding on to Helena’s hand, the last bit to still be within her grasp.

“Only to prepare for bed,” Helena said softly – another promise, delivered quite differently, but no less noticeably. 

Myka nodded.

~~~

_You come back a changed woman. This is the sway Myka holds over you, has held ever since the two of you met. You are a weaver of words and images that easily deceive the entire world (yourself), but with one look, she penetrates all your carefully wrought fronts and canvasses. With one word, she bares your heart to the hope you might not even need them any longer. With one touch, she anchors you who have been adrift for so long (too long) and pulls you to her side._

_Tonight, she does not accompany her gesture with words, and yet the meaning of Myka Bering’s outstretched hand is as clear as the air of Earth’s finest spring morning:_ you belong. _You belong, at her side. You belong, nestled between her and a sleeping child who has proven, in the space of barely more than a day, to wield much the same kind of power. You belong to the arm that twines around your waist, to the content sigh of breath that shifts the hair at the nape of your neck, to the body that is solid warmth against a back you finally feel you do not need to watch any longer. You belong to this woman, heart, body and mind, more than three words could ever express, more than a lifetime spent redeeming could ever earn._

_You hear her whisper three words of her own then, and you remember her assurance that she considers you redeemed, and you realize that among all her dominion, she holds what can mend your soul. It is possible, you remember the voice of a stranger (mother) (friend), to trust someone else to trust you, for as long as it takes you to regain your self-confidence. That is called healing._

_Myka Bering loves you._

_You release a breath, and with it, something you have held on to for what seems like forever. With it, you find something you have searched for, for what seems like forever. You relax, once again, and once again so very consciously, so very deliberately, into your lover’s embrace. Before you fully fall asleep, another memory crosses your mind and tugs the corners of your lips upwards._

_We haven’t even kissed yet._

_Soon, you answer._

~~~

Sometime during the night, Helena must have turned. The thought was worrisome in that it drove home how deeply Myka must have been under not to have noticed the movement, but Myka’s mind didn’t, couldn’t dwell on that. 

Because waking to the view of Helena’s sleeping face was frighteningly blissful. 

And it also meant that Helena, in her turn, was under so deeply that she had slept through Myka’s waking, and Myka would bet dollars to donuts, jeez, to donuts in a room with _Pete_ , that Helena G. Wells was not one to sleep through anything. She didn’t seem to sleep at all, right? Whenever they’d shared a room in the past, Myka had fallen asleep and woken up in the very solid awareness that Helena was awake. Heavens knew how the woman found rest. 

She looked so restful now, even if her lashes were resting on a smudge of purplish-grey. They all had those shadows beneath their eyes, Myka knew, and they all would need some time to lose them. A little higher up, a slight frown creased Helena’s eyebrows; Myka could even see some lines on a forehead she had, before, always thought of as perfectly smooth. But then, she had never before been quite this close, much less in morning sunshine, and she herself had them, too, hadn’t she. And who was entitled to worry lines if not-

Helena moved. Myka froze, but the other woman just snuggled closer, burying her face in the crook of Myka’s neck. It was… complex, to hold her like this. Baffling, because of the way Myka’s arms came up quite without waiting for her thoughts to catch up with them; came up and wrapped themselves around the slender body that, in turn, seemed to burrow still closer with a small, contented sound that pulled at her heartstrings. Bewildering, because Myka had never ever been so physically, alright: _intimately_ , close to another woman, and while she had never understood all the issues some people seemed to have with the whole matter of homosexuality, she also had never considered that she might, one day, be smack in the middle of it. Not that she cared, really, when this felt so right. So… protective. So peaceful, so totally, perfectly _loving_. Who the hell would have issues with that? And lastly, it felt so… insanely funny, to think she was- 

“Oh to wake up to the sound of your chuckle every morning, my dear,” a voice tickled the skin of her neck, and Myka flinched slightly. Then she felt the same spot being soothed by a pair of lips, and tensed, a bit more than slightly. A head drew slowly back. “I am sorry, Myka. I did not intend to make you uncomfortable; quite the opposite, in fact.” Brown eyes full of apprehension looked up at her and, yup, the frown was back in place, too. 

“You didn’t,” Myka said a bit too quickly, busy with cursing herself, her body, her treacherous reflexes. “Gosh, Helena, you didn’t.” A solution occurred to her, and her mouth resumed without waiting for her thoughts to really think it through. “On the contrary, I was just thinking how incredibly peaceful this felt. And how curling up in bed with H.G. Wells just got a whole new meaning.” 

The frown was replaced by a much more welcome smile. “We are that, are we not. Peacefully curled up in bed,” Helena said, all languorous alabaster laziness painted gold by morning sunlight. The powder blue silk chemise she’d worn to bed hadn’t done much to Myka’s senses yesterday, even when they’d embraced; she’d been way to tired – but now that Helena’s slow (and damn well deliberate, if Myka knew her at all) stretch brought it to her attent- 

“Good morning, my dear.” Helena’s voice was at her ear, and Myka fought to keep from flinching again. “Ticklish, are we?” The sibilant didn’t help matters. Myka simply nodded. And Helena, damn her, crooned, then clicked her tongue. “While I would dearly wish to examine that further, my dearest Myka, I am afraid we’re no longer in a position to do so. Someone is _kicking me_.” And shouting those last two words, she whirled around to catch Livia’s foot, resulting in a squeal that brought down the roof, or at least everyone out of their morning’s sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My little dictionary, part II:  
> “Ich muss mal.” - I need to use the bathroom (or other euphemism of that ilk)


	7. Chapter 7

Breakfast was another complex affair. It was so… haphazard. Pete had found his way down to the kitchen first, and had apparently just dug into fridge and cupboards, trying to piece together what he found there. But he hadn’t found some things Leena always put on the table, and hadn’t placed what he _had_ found the way Leena usually did, and really, not even Myka’s last-minute efforts to rectify at least that last bit could help the gloom that sat down with them. 

Leena was gone. And she would not return. And no one would ever set the table that way again.

Livia was munching her way through a bowl of cereals, oblivious to the long faces and silences. Then Claudia, watching her, chimed up, “Guys… you know, not wanting to pry or anything, but… I mean I know Kid here slept in Myka’s bed last night, and… well, that won’t be a long-term arrangement, right? She needs a room of her own, doesn’t she?” 

Artie sucked in a breath and spread his arms. “Place is packed, Claudia. That over there,” he pointed to the back of the building and the one room on the ground floor no one had ever been in since Myka had moved here three years ago, “is the guest-room we need to hold for Regents and the like; we obviously can’t put up the girl in there.”

Silence spread, like dark ink in a glass of water, as everyone regarded the elephant suddenly in the room with them. It was Claudia, again, who found the courage to address it. “Well, there’s Leena’s roo-” she began, then stopped herself when Artie shuddered heavily. “Sorry,” she mumbled weakly, “sorry.”

Silence returned. Then Claudia fidgeted and cleared her throat. Myka could only admire her tenacity.

“So…” Claudia resumed, frowning, then looked around the table, “…what do we do?” And when no one answered, she drummed lightly on the wooden surface, “come on, guys, we need to figure this out. The rooms. Groceries, cleaning, laundry, well, you _know_. We need to…” she swallowed harshly, but forged on, “we need to find a way to deal with this.”

“You’re right, Claudia,” Myka said, fiddling with the cuff of her terrycloth robe and blinking away a tear or five. “There’s a lot we need to do, a lot we need to think of. I know we all miss Leena terribly-”

“You have _no_ idea,” Artie all but shouted, bursting from his chair and backing away from the table. Livia flinched and for the briefest moment, Myka was tempted to spit bloody murder at Artie for frightening the child, but the impulse passed as soon as she saw his eyes. Bloodshot, and with circles to rival his eyebrows. Arthur Nielsen, rumpled and, alone of all of them, fully clothed, hadn’t slept at all if she was any judge, and they had to find a way to deal with that, too. She exchanged a quick glance with Helena who nodded and turned to calm Livia, then she headed after Artie. 

“Artie – Artie!” He was already halfway to the front door. “Artie, stop. Stop, for heaven’s sake!” Myka finally got close enough to grab his elbow, and he whirled to face her.

“So that you all can look at me like that again?” he flared. “Accusing me? So that someone can suggest I move fully to the Warehouse to make room for our newest arrival?”

“What?! Artie, no one’s-”

“Myka. I _have_ eyes to see, you know? And I know what I _did_. I remember every bit of it, every word I said, every thing I did. Everything. Everything!” He gestured wildly, breaking free of Myka’s grasp. “So don’t give me that spiel about this being a family, or, or, or ‘working through this’.” The venom in his voice was as obvious as the inverted commas were. “I killed her, Myka, and I damn near killed the _world_ , goddamnit, and on top of that, I’m taking up space for the next generation, so thank you, I’m going already.” 

Stunned by his words, Myka didn’t realize he was moving until the door swung open. She jumped forwards and slammed against it, forcing it shut with the full weight of her body. “No you’re not.”

Artie glared at her. “Who’s stopping me? You? The one I called prudish, and condescending, and too smart for her own good?”

“Nice try, but that doesn’t work twice, you know,” Myka blew out a shaky breath. Her words weren’t quite true, but there were more important things at stake here. She leaned bodily against the door, trying to ignore _all_ of his attempts to get past her guard. “You’re just saying this because you hurt. We all hurt, Artie, and neither lashing out nor running will change that. Everything that has happened threatens to tear us a-”

“Everything I _did_ is tearing this apart,” Artie spat, “so what better way to stop it than letting me leave? You know, Myka, I don’t get it, I _really_ don’t _get_ why you’re trying to-”

“Cause she loves you, man,” Pete’s voice came from the back of the hall. “We all do. You did what you did because you weren’t yourself, don’t you see?” He walked forwards purposefully, a grim twist to his mouth.

“Oh I assure you, Pete,” the older agent replied so very caustically, “I have a very good recollection of what I did and did not do, and who I was at the time. Meaning I was in full possession of my mental abil-”

“But you weren’t in _control_ ,” Pete almost yelled, flinging out one arm. He walked past Artie and joined Myka at the door. “Way I see it,” he continued in quieter tones, “you _were_ in control when you used the astrolabe to save the Warehouse and H.G. and Mrs. Frederic. And that was a good thing, and I’m _not_ gonna blame you for what happened afterwards because it wasn’t _you_ , in your _right mind_ , _doing_ it!” His voice had risen again over the last few words, and his eyes seemed to burn into Artie’s, rooting him to the spot. Then he softened again. “And we’re good with forgiving people for doing things while they’re not in their right mind, Artie my friend.” 

He threw one quick glance at Myka, as if begging her to chime in. She wanted to hug him on the spot because he wasn’t just talking about Artie and his eyes told her so, but there was the small matter of getting Artie to acknowledge his words. “He’s right, Artie, you know that.” She turned back to the smaller man and laid a hand on his arm. “I know how hard it must be for you to remember all of it, but running away won’t help. We’ll back off if you need us to, but please don’t run away and please don’t shut us out.”

Artie’s eyes were wide and wild. “Because none of this would have happened if I hadn’t shut you out in the first place? That’s and old, old argument, Myka, and I’m _not buying_ it!” He resumed rattling the doorknob. “Get away from this.”

“No,” Myka said, shaking her head emphatically.

“Do it, damnit!”

“No!” Pete called, sticking his face into Artie’s. “And it’s not unlawful imprisonment if it’s done by people who love you,” he continued, almost singing the last four words.

“You’re going to insist on that all day long, aren’t you,” Artie gnarled. 

“All week if I need to,” Pete shrugged. “Now _you_ come away from there.”

“Oh, alright,” the older man grated, pulling his arm out of Myka’s reach once more. He walked back into the hallway, one agent in front, one behind him. “But I’ll have you know, I’m _not_ -” right inside the doorway to the living room, he spun and ducked past Myka with surprising speed, “-planning to stay around and _listen_ to all this, Goddamnit,” he yelled, barreling down the hall again.

Helena, stepping into his path with a still-teary child on her arm, stopped him as if he’d been tesla’d. “You should, you know. It would be the polite thing to do.” 

“Not you, too,” he griped, shaking his hands in front of him. Livia cringed, and he dropped them, instantly, then raised one accusing finger. “That’s blatant abuse of a child what you’re doing, you _are_ aware of that, aren’t you.” He turned around to fix Pete and Myka with a thunderous stare that would have been way more effective if it hadn’t been so familiar. “You have _no_ idea,” he began, grinding the words past his teeth, “how it feels to remember yourself doing all those things, saying all those things, hurting people, _killing_ people! It was _me_ doing it, don’t you see? I knew it was wrong, and I saw so very clearly that it was _right_. You have _no_ idea how that feels, none! None!”

“Oh, but I do.” Helena had sneaked up close enough behind him to all but purr in his ear. “I know how it feels to lose the restraints the world calls morals, to finally shake off the petty hindrances other people consider law. I know the satisfaction of seeing a plan’s puzzle pieces settle into place, of seeing a well-thought-out machination turn its wheels. So smooth, so pleasing. So inexorable.” Myka almost pitied Artie for a moment. She knew what that tone of voice would have done to her, had Helena turned it her way. It was only her concentration on Artie that helped her stay unaffected as it was. Well, and what Helena was actually saying, of course, and what she was trying to do. “Trust me, Artie,” Helena continued, still cradling a visibly upset Livia, even rocking the kid slightly, “I do know. We might have come at it down different paths, but we arrived at a very similar place, one could say. And as I have found my way away from there, so shall you.”

“Into Regent prison, you mean? Oh, very uplifting.” But his composure was cracking, Myka was sure of it.

“I don’t think so,” Helena replied with a shrug. “That is the difference between what I did and what you did, you realize. You were under the influence of an artifact. I was not.” A muscle twitched in her jaw. “So I doubt you will end up stored on a coin.” 

“Oh, so you’d rather have me redeem myself by noble self-sacrifice, like you did?” 

The words hung there, glowing, ringing, turning in the silence. 

“Artie, what…” Myka whispered, and he whirled on her, pointing an arm behind him.

“She did. Before I used the astrolabe. Saved the three of us-” his arm came forward to indicate himself, Pete and Myka, “-by rigging part of the Warehouse’s force field to protect us from the explosion. Too bad it had to be ‘activated from outside’,” he mimicked Helena’s accent and again, Myka was fully ready to _punch_ him, but the air seemed to sit too heavily on her lungs to breathe, too heavily on her shoulders to stay upright, and she found herself fighting it, not him. She knew he was telling the truth, hated what he said, hated how his way of saying it hurt everybody who heard him. She couldn’t look at Helena, couldn’t look at Pete, could hardly bear to continue looking at Artie. 

“And then,” Artie went on, gesticulating wildly, “we went to find the astrolabe, to undo all of that, and then _you_ died.” His finger was in Pete’s face now. “You were dying and damn well _joking_ about it, saying you wouldn’t remember anyway if I used the goddamn thing! And so I did, ‘cause I had no choice, and next thing I know I’m getting visions of _Claudia-_ ” he wrung his hands almost subconsciously, “-stabbing me with that bloody dagger. And now I can’t stop seeing Lee-” he broke off, panting, then shook himself like a dog. “So if you want it to be _my_ turn with the Janus coin now,” he continued in a cutting voice, “fine, do it. Take those goddamn memories. Do it, and be done with it, and blast the goddamn thing to pieces when you’re through, because I – am – finished!”

“No you’re not,” someone whispered fiercely. Myka’s head snapped around to see Claudia standing in the doorway to the living room, hand clenched around one of Steve’s. She let go and walked towards them, steps as inexorable as her words. “You’re so far from being finished you couldn’t touch it with Bubka’s pole, dude. I don’t want your death, oh and don’t shake your head like that ‘cause that’s exactly what you’re talking about. I don’t want _any_ more deaths, you hear me, _or_ people leaving. I don’t want to be left with nothing but ‘once upon a time there was a family’. I want your _life_ , Artie,” she said, finally in front of him, finger to his chest. “I want your life,” she repeated, poking his ribs with each word. “Each day, everyday, even when it’s not easy.”

“And just how do you suggest _that’s_ going to work?” Artie shot at her.

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms and Myka suddenly felt like laughing because the only thing missing was a tapping foot, right? “Artie, I’d have thought I’d be the last person on Earth to ever be saying this, but we need to talk about this,” Claudia said, pinning him with a stare.

“She’s right, you know,” Pete chimed in, drawing several pairs of surprised eyes. “What? We do! _This_ is tearing us apart!” He pointed at all of them in turn, landing on Artie last. “You _going_ would tear us apart, Artie. We need to work through this, and people usually do that by talking, you know. Not by running away.”

“I wasn’t running. Not at my time of life.” And now, finally, Myka felt free to laugh because that surly tone surely meant they’d succeeded.

“You were so running, Jesse Owens,” Claudia said, punching Artie’s arm, obviously thinking the same thing. “You were so running I considered changing my name to Wile E. Donovan for a moment there. You know, actually that might…” Her words faded away as she and Pete pulled Artie towards the living room again, leaving Myka alone with Helena who, apparently, was trying to explain what they’d just witnessed to a wide-eyed four-year-old.

“You… did you really…” Myka began when Helena stopped talking.

“Sacrifice myself?” Helena asked back. “If I did, I certainly don’t remember,” she quipped. 

Myka flinched and looked away. Then she heard Helena say something to Livia, heard the double thud of kid’s feet hitting the floor, heard the rapid patter of said feet running towards where the rest of the family had gone. Felt fingers on her shoulder. 

“I apologize, Myka,” Helena said softly, hand falling away again. “I have this unfortunate penchant for making light of things that seem too harsh to bear when taken seriously.”

“I know,” Myka said, looking up with a shrug and a smile. “It’s a… it’s a way of coping. I know. I mean, I do it too, off and on.” Her eyes dropped to the floor again, to a pair of goddamn furry slippers and a pair of bare feet that surely must be freezing. “You…”

“You know,” Helena said, as if lost in thought, “before Artie suggested using the dhoti, I _was_ thinking about trying to re-wire the barrier. I even realized it would mean I had to… activate it from outside.” Her voice trembled slightly on words they both remembered Artie practically spitting just then. “I can’t say I wasn’t grateful that we found another solution.” A smile stole across her face, solidified when Myka looked up at her, dumbfounded. “Still and all, it would appear that I am, in fact, quite forgetful, if only with regard to very specific things.”

 _Quickly, before I forget that I’m not that noble._ And a look skywards, and a grasp for a locket that held- “When did you put my picture in your locket, anyway?” Myka asked on impulse. She still remembered giving it back. Helena’s smile had broken like sunlight through clouds, like it did now. 

“When the notion came to me to put your picture in with my Christina’s, I never doubted its rightness for a heartbeat. It took me a while to find a moment to put thought into action, but…” She looked to her right, then up, as if trying to remember, “I think…” she mused, and Myka was suddenly convinced that Helena’s diffidence was nothing but a sham to make her smile, “it was the very same night you returned it to me.” _Right._ Myka grinned, and Helena returned a knowing smile. “Though I daresay you’d rather like to know why, not when, don’t you?”

“Well, I can kinda guess, I think,” Myka replied, still grinning, and threaded her arm through Helena’s, setting out for the living room. _God, I do hope she didn’t use the one Pete took when I-_

“Figured it out, have you?” Helena murmured, with a sidelong glance, then stopped just inside the door. “By the way, there is another solution to the rooming arrangements, you know.”

“Hm?” Myka hummed, attention in equal halves on the question of which picture might be in Helena’s locket, and on Pete’s attempt to impress Livia with how he could drink milk and then release it through his nostrils. 

“Well, since my room adjoins yours anyway, I could move in with you, and Livia could have mine.” 

Four pair of eyes landed, with a veritable crash of silence, on the two of them, and Livia giggled as drops of milk landed, forgotten, in Pete’s gaping mouth.


	8. Chapter 8

“Uh…” Myka began, mouth forming a thousand unsaid words, mind whirling with just as many half-formed thoughts. “I, ah…” Helena was looking at her with hopeful pride, like a student who’s not at all certain how his idea is going to be received, but quite convinced of its brilliance nevertheless. “Just…” she swallowed, “uh, just give me a moment, alright, to, to… to think about this,” she managed before she turned and _not_ fled.

“Smooth, H.G.,” Myka heard Pete’s comment through the open doorway as she made her way, _not_ running, to the front door. The very same door that she had, barely minutes before, tried to prevent Artie from leaving through – the irony wasn’t lost on her. It swung open without any hindrances this time, and the cold biting into her calves stopped further thoughts for as long as it took to get to the porch swing and under the thick blanket that was waiting on the swing’s cushions. Even with it protecting her, she was glad about her robe – blanket across her shoulders and almost over her head, terrycloth a swaddled bag around her feet, Myka tried to think rationally about what Helena had just suggested.

She hadn’t had a roommate since… well, since her parents had decided that each sister should have her own space to wreak her individual brand of havoc in. She hadn’t even considered moving in with- and Helena _wasn’t_ Sam. Helena wasn’t a mostly-responsible, sometimes-goofy guy you instantly clicked with. Helena didn’t call you ‘bunny’ or other truly _pet_ names. Helena wasn’t someone you hung out with after a long day at work. After work, H.G. Wells went to her room; and while everyone _supposed_ she read, or tinkered, or did research, no one really _knew_. She valued her privacy, more so than Myka did (and that was saying a lot). She hardly ever showed up for dinner, even, and Myka _had_ wondered before if Helena’s eating habits weren’t as bad as her sleeping habits seemed to be. Well, she’d be able to witness that first-hand if-

Dear God, was she thinking of _mothering_ H.G. _Wells?_

 _Back to the matter at hand,_ Myka reprimanded herself. What things boiled down to was that Helena was _not_ someone to… to get chummy with. Or was she? Could she be? Could they spend time together, and feel comfortable around each other? Well, truth be told, Helena drove her to distraction simply by sitting in the library with her, or the living room, or – well, not the kitchen; she had never even seen Helena in the kitchen, heavens knew where and how the woman got her tea. Sometimes Helena drove Myka out of her mind by simply being in the next room, and that was totally her fault, not Myka’s. Her fault for being such a fascinating, quirky, relentless flirt-

 _Back to the matter at hand, Bering, back to the matter at hand._ But she _could_ go into that, couldn’t she, the fascination, the flirting, if she were to spend more time around Helena. Could explore (bad choice of a verb there) the sheer magnetism of this woman, the undeniable pull each time Myka even thought of (those lips, quirking) her (those eyes, gleaming) fellow (those clever, deft, tinkerer’s hands) agent (that _hair_ ). 

_Focus, goddamnit._

Helena had told her that she loved her, and Myka had responded in kind. That was a fact. And she had meant it; of course she had. And it had felt right, to tell her. Had felt right to hold her, to almost kiss her. To entertain the idea of caring for a child with her. To think about sharing her life with Helena G. Wells.

But was that enough to think about sharing a room? To make that work? After all, that was a whole ‘nother can of worms, wasn’t it?

Had Helena even thought about all of that when she’d made her suggestion?

Myka jumped up, nearly falling over the robe that tangled her feet. Some things you had to think through, some you just had to _do_ – she went to the window, fully resolved to rap on the pane if she saw Helena inside. 

Then she saw Helena inside. 

Saw Helena read to Livia, one pair of eyes slightly amused, the other practically crawling into the page; one slender finger following a line, one smaller one pointing to some illustration or other. Pete and Claudia seemed to have cleared the table and gone, probably to play a video game if Myka knew her fellow agents. Steve was still at the table, reading the Univille Clarion. And Artie… Artie was sitting opposite Helena and Livia, watching them with an unreadable expression in his eyes. 

Myka couldn’t quite make out which book it was, but it didn’t really matter; her heart couldn’t be fuller in any case. And she couldn’t bring herself to knock for long, long minutes, until cold creeping into fuzzy slippers brought back some semblance of conscious thought. 

She tapped one finger against the window, waved to Livia, beckoned to Helena, tilted her head in silent appeal. Watched Helena hand book and kid to Artie, watched Artie and Livia scrutinize each other for a long moment, watched Artie break and begin to read. Winnie-the-Pooh, she suddenly saw, and managed to resume breathing before Helena stepped outside and rubbed her arms. 

“Jeez, it’s too cold out here for you, isn’t it?” Myka asked, warm fuzzy feelings evaporating instantly because ‘Helena’ and ‘cold’ equaled ‘Moscow’ and that wasn’t a good direction for her thoughts this morning, what with Artie and all. “You’re not even wearing a robe or shoes,” she went on, “let’s-” 

A hand on her arm stopped her. “I see a perfectly good blanket over there,” Helena pointed, “I suppose I could prevail upon you to share its warmth?”

Blanket. Share. Warmth. “Ah, yes. Yeah. Sure. Of course.” A few tangles and tugs, and a _wave_ of self-consciousness (she was cuddling up with H.G. Wells again, and on a goddamn porch swing, too) later, they were indeed sharing a little cocoon of warmth. Myka tried not to think of how Helena’s legs were crossing hers, nor of how her arm had sneaked, quite without conscious thought, across Helena’s back to pull her even closer. Nor of how Helena had mirrored that motion immediately. Warmth _was_ the goal, wasn’t it?

“It would change a lot of things,” she began, confident that Helena would know what she meant. “And there have been so many changes lately. Maybe it’s too many, too soon,” she sighed deeply, “I don’t know.”

“Or maybe it isn’t,” Helena replied. “Maybe it’s simply two sensible women’s solution to the problem of rooming arrangements. We have shared a room before.”

Myka shot her a long look, relenting only when Helena broke into a small, eye-rolling smile. “Right.” She joined it briefly, then grew serious again. “What if it doesn’t work out? We’re both very private people, Helena, and I for one am no longer used to sharing-”

“Something I’ve never been in the first place,” Helena murmured dryly, and Myka flashed her another smile.

“-and if it does go wrong, all sorts of things could go with it.”

“What if it does?” Helena looked at her frankly. “We are both of us grown women; if things do not work as intended, we’ll find a different solution. And,” she smirked ever so slightly, “I do believe the chances are rather long that we’re not going to need to. After all, think of all we’ve overcome to land here.” She tightened her hold around Myka’s waist just a little, to indicate what ‘here’ meant. “Does sharing a room really present such a challenge?”

“You’re set on this.”

“Myka, I’m terrified of it.” Her words brought Myka up short. She stared at the other woman, trying to figure out- “I suppose I’m trying to talk both of us round to it,” Helena said, ducking her head. 

“And heavens know how good you are at that,” Myka snorted. “Did you ever… you know, live with someone before? Other than Christina, obviously,” she added quickly, tensing and, yup: blushing in sudden mortification. 

The arm around her waist tightened another fraction, and the body in front of her leaned closer. “No.” Helena sighed. “I never moved in with Christina’s father, nor he with me; it was an ill-fated dalliance, doomed almost before it began. One of my many mistakes, I’m afraid; and even disregarding that, I wasn’t exactly… relationship material, I guess one could call it,” she gave Myka a lopsided smile, then looked down again. “As to living arrangements – at home, I had my own flight of rooms, of course, which I later lived in with Christina. But with regard to sharing one room with one partner – no, I’ve never cohabitated quite that way before. But,” she said, straightening a little, grinning a little, “I am confident that, my advanced age notwithstanding, I can yet learn to adapt. And I’m quite used to how little, or rather next to none, privacy you have left once a child enters your life, and I’m perfectly willing to share that expertise.”

“Why thank you,” Myka grinned back at her. “How very gracious of you.”

“I find myself resorting to all manners of approaches in order to further your high opinion of me.” Helena stretched quite smugly, and even as Myka enjoyed all manners of things about the motion, she was _positive_ that Helena’s ultimate goal had been to bring her ice-cold nose to Myka’s cheek. She didn’t even flinch, though, much less move away – no, she snuggled closer, turning her head slightly until she felt Helena’s breath warm her cheek. Her chin dipped lower, looking for another promise of warmth that was so very nearly within reach, and she felt rather than heard Helena’s breath stop and resume a little quicker than before when-

There was the unmistakable sound of Claudia Donovan’s phone taking a picture, then a rapidly receding squee of wicked joy. And then the hunt was on.


	9. Chapter 9

The move, in the end, was unsurprisingly chaotic. Helena had the two male agents pick up her whole wardrobe and move it across the hall, then shooed them away when they offered to do the same with her bookshelves. 

“Those would never fit anyway,” Myka agreed, half-hanging out of the door of Helena’s room with Livia clinging to her hand. She’d just free some shelf space – somehow – for Helena’s favorites, and the rest would stay in He- Livia’s room for the now. “And we’ll buy a nice wardrobe just for you,” she said, poking the kid’s nose with a grin. Damnit, she _had_ to learn German. “Helena?” she hollered and stepped fully out into the hall, trying to think of where the other woman might have disappeared to, leaving her with a slightly frightened and hugely confused four-year-old whose language she didn’t speak.

“Keine Angst, Livia,” Artie said, huffing up the stairs, “das ist alles nicht schlimm. Sie machen nur Platz, damit Du in dem Zimmer wohnen kannst. Und Myka sagt, sie kauft Dir ein… ah…”

“Kleiderschrank,” a tinny voice supplied. Pete rounded the corner, phone in hand. “Remember Rule 34?” he said, a propos of nothing. “Well, Rule _134_ says if it exists, there’s an app for it.” He held the device aloft, adding proudly, “with voice output!”

“Rule 34? What’s rule 34?” Myka asked, feeling confused. This seemed like something she should know, especially judging by Pete’s reaction to her question.

He’d been kneeling next to Livia, no doubt searching for words like ‘fliptastic’ or ‘bonzo’, but now he was looking up, grinning fit to split his head. “Fancy _you_ not knowing that.”

“Pete!” she threatened, then turned, “Artie, there isn’t a rule 34 in the Manual, is there?”

“Not in my copy, anyway,” Artie replied, then held a book aloft. “I figured I’d try and distract the tyke,” he said, “lessens the chances of her being run over by a wardrobe.” 

Livia’s eyes fixed on the book immediately and lit up like a Christmas tree. “Pooh!” she squealed, and was at Artie’s side in a happy heartbeat, tugging impatiently at his free hand. 

“Awww, Artie, you big plushy softie, you,” Pete crooned, then rose and followed the two of them down the stairs. “Hey Claud,” he said as the young woman squeezed past him on her way up, “guess what? Myka has _never heard_ of Rule 34.”

“No way!” This was getting decidedly out of hand, Myka decided. More so when Claudia yelled, “Jinksie! Jinks!! You’ll never guess-”

“For Christ’s sake, Claudia, I’m right here,” Steve said, stepping out of Myka’s room. “I already went Schumann’s way, d’you want me to go Beethoven, too?”

“Whazzat?”

“He went deaf at the end,” Myka explained, glad to be able to contribute something for once. “Steve, do _you_ know this rule?”

Steve shrugged. “Course I do. Don’t you?”

“Hey _hey_ hey,” Pete called from where he had been totally listening in at the foot of the stairs, “guys like him practically _ensure-_ ”

“Hold it right there, Lattimer,” Steve interrupted him, “or I might just take offense. I know for a fact that _you-_ ”

Pete coughed. “Alright, alright, I’m backing off, I’m backing off – look at me! See me backing off? ‘cause that’s what I’m doing.”

“You’d better.” Steve turned to Myka and was in the very process of opening his mouth (hopefully to finally present an explanation) when Helena stuck her head through the door of Myka’s room.

“What’s all this?”

“Myka doesn’t know Rule 34,” Steve threw over his shoulder. “Myka, actually I think you should better take a look at where we put the wardrobe, just in case.”

“Right. Right! We _were_ moving, weren’t we?” Myka said, glaring at everyone within her sight, hoping that they were finally over all that nons- 

“Fancy you not knowing Rule 34,” Helena practically _hummed_ when Myka passed by her on the way into what had been her room only half an hour before. 

_I’m so googling this next chance I get,_ Myka vowed to herself.

~~~

The rest of the day wasn’t much better, because an unexpected child with no belongings but a small suitcase meant they had to _shop_. 

Myka didn’t really like shopping much. And she hated malls. Antique book stores, yard sales, flea markets – she could spend ages there, but malls were spawned of the devil and never had what she needed. But there were no yard sales in Univille, much less antique stores, and they had to get a lot of stuff for Livia like, yesterday. And do groceries. Myka would have happily done groceries, but that would have meant leaving Helena to fend for herself shopping for kid’s stuff, and that hadn’t seemed an auspicious beginning to them sharing… whatever it was they were sharing.

So Pete had gone off to the supermarket section (while Myka had tried to clamp down on her forebodings), and she and Helena and Livia had struck out for clothes and accessories and furniture and… and she wouldn’t have minded watching _Helena_ try on another shirt or three, really she wouldn’t have. But there simply hadn’t been time for that kind of thing, and then there had been the drive home and the unpacking and the assembling and the setting aside for washing and the attempting to get Livia to leave off it until then and… and now it was half past eight and everyone was sitting in the living room winding down and the kid was, finally, happily, in bed, and Myka still hadn’t called her parents.

She should. She was not a procrastinator. She really should call. So she grabbed her phone, gave Helena a fleeting smile, got her jacket, and headed for the porch swing and its blanket again.

“Myka! That’s a nice surprise; how are you, honey?”

“Hey Mom,” Myka said, trying to keep her voice nice and steady. “I’m fine. How… uh, how are things in your part of the world?” _Oh, smooth._

“Fine – fine! We’re just back from Tracy’s and Kevin’s; you wouldn’t believe how big your sister’s getting. She’s fine, of course, but apparently the doctor told her the baby could be moving more, the dolt – well, the doctor’s a dolt, not the baby, of course – and now Tracy’s terribly nervous even though everything’s perfectly fine – I can tell, you know. Moms can always tell. And Kevin- but you didn’t call to hear me rambling about your sister and your brother-in-law, did you, sweetheart.”

“Well, Mom, as a matter of fact, I didn’t. I… um…” Myka bit her lip. _Moms can always tell._ “Mom, there’s been a… a change in my life. A major one. A good one, Mom,” she added quickly, hearing her mother suck in a breath. “A good one. Only… only it’s one I really rather wouldn’t talk about over the phone, you know,” she suddenly realized. “Can I… do you… would you have time over the weekend?”

“Wh- Myka! But of course we do.” God. Her mother sounded… thrilled, and Myka was not at all sure that this particular change warranted it just yet. “And we’d be happy to see you. We’re having the Turners over on Friday night, but you’re welcome to join us, or I could tell them that-”

“No!” Myka all but shouted. “No, Mom,” she continued in a lower voice. “No, Saturday will be fine.”

“You’ll spend the night, of course; I’ll fix your old room for you-”

“Um, Mom…” How to tell her that her old room, with her old bed, wouldn’t be large enough because she wasn’t coming alone? Well, she wasn’t, was she? She _was_ bringing Helena and Livia along, right?

“What is it, honey? No time to spend even one night at your old place? Surely your boss won’t spoil your weekend that way?”

“What? No! I mean yes, I mean, of course I’m planning to stay the night, if nothing comes up work-wise; it really would be crazy to come and drive straight back again-” _Stop babbling, damnit!_ “That’s not it, Mom, just… just, please, would you… could you fix the guest room? I… I won’t be coming alone.”

There was the distinct sound of pottery, or glass, shattering on the floor. “Of course you’re not coming alone,” Jean Bering said in a deceptively level voice. “Oh, sweetheart… Myka… honey, you need to tell me everyth-”

“Saturday, Mom, okay? Please?”

“Of course, dear.” Myka’s mother sighed. “When do you think the two of you will be there?”

 _That’s an opening if ever there was one, Bering; use it._ “Um, there’ll be three of us, Mom. And I think we’ll be there around dinnertime, but Livia’s four and I don’t know how she’ll put up with sitting in a car that long.” Myka scratched her hairline, waiting if there would be a reply, then asked, “Mom?”

“Of course,” her mother answered, once more. Myka could practically hear her shake herself out of whatever she’d been thinking. “Um, of course. Livia.” It was as much of a question as one word could ever be.

“Saturday, Mom. I promise.”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

Myka ended the call and turned around, only to spot Claudia hanging onto the door. 

“Sorry,” Claudia apologized instantly. “I didn’t mean to listen in, but… sheesh. Parents?”

Myka hummed affirmation, looking at the phone in her left, running her right through her hair. “And now I’ll have to explain to Helena that I’ll be taking her to see my parents.”

“ _No_ envy, dude,” Claudia said, raising her hands. She was holding something in her right, Myka noticed, nodding towards the small device. “Uh, yeah – maybe that’ll help smooth the way?” Claudia handed it over. “It’s why I came out to look for you. Mini Farnsworth; I figured a kid’s never too small for cool, so I, you know, kinda made it while y’all were out shopping. Works like a baby phone _and_ like a real Farnsworth, only it can only call _your_ Farnsworth, see?” 

“You _made_ a Farnsworth? I thought Artie said… Claudia, you almost wrecked ours when you-” Myka broke off, seeing the wince on Claudia’s face. This one would be safe; of course it would be. Claudia Donovan might make mistakes, but she did not make them twice. Myka’s heart went out to the young woman. “This is … this is awesome, Claudia.”

Claudia shrugged, then ducked a little when Myka threw her arms around her. “Alright, alright,” she said when Myka didn’t release her, and patted Myka’s shoulder awkwardly, “just don’t tell Artie just yet, yeah? ‘My first Farnsworth’ here shouldn’t interfere with the, you know, real, big Farnsworths? The sender is, like, really super-weak and-”

Myka didn’t really listen to Claudia’s explanation; she knew Claudia could (and would) go on for ages if she let her, and it afforded her the opportunity to go on hugging her. She held on to both the little treasure and to Claudia for a while longer, blinking furiously, then released her friend with a long-drawn-out breath. “Thanks, Claud.” 

“Well, you know,” Claudia shrugged again. “Kid’s sweet. And I really, really suck at knitting, so I had to think of something else to give her, right?”

“You didn’t _have_ to. But you did, and that is so sweet of you.” Myka bumped her hip into Claudia’s as they went inside. “Auntie Claud.”

“I’m _not_ Auntie Claud. I’m not _old_ enough to be Auntie Claud,” Claudia protested, trying to cover her embarrassment. “Don’t make me make you regret you called me that, Myka-Mommy.”

“Okay deal.” Anything to get Claudia to refrain from saying the words ‘Myka’ and ‘Mommy’ in such close connection ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My little dictionary, part III:  
> “Keine Angst, Livia.” - don't be afraid, Livia  
> “das ist alles nicht schlimm. Sie machen nur Platz, damit Du in dem Zimmer wohnen kannst. Und Myka sagt, sie kauft Dir ein… ah…” - It's not that bad. They're clearing space for you to live in that room. And Myka says she's going to buy you a…  
> “Kleiderschrank.” - wardrobe


	10. Chapter 10

For once, fate (or whoever) must have been smiling on them, Myka decided. There’d been one minor ping that Steve and Pete had dealt with practically before lunchtime, no dramatic breakdowns from any of the team, not even so much as an unpalatable dinner (turned out Steve and Artie made quite the kitchen brigade) and, last but not least, Myka had managed to wheedle a full three-day weekend out of Artie. They’d even found a parking space, literally ten steps away from her parent’s house. 

If only Helena weren’t so nervous.

Oh, she wasn’t showing it much, and who if not Helena could charm the heck out of anyone in any case; no, Myka doubted that anyone else would notice. The so very British, so amiable smile was perfectly in place, after all. But it was, for all intents and purposes, a front. And it did _not_ help Myka’s own apprehension.

“Maybe this is a bad idea,” Myka said, for what seemed like the tenth time in three days. 

“Oh, nonsense, darling,” and that really drove it home, didn’t it. Helena hadn’t called her ‘darling’ since… well, since Germany. And she knew it, too. “I’m sorry, Myka,” Helena added, sounding far too tired, even if it hadn’t been her who’d been driving. But then it had been almost a day’s worth of journey. And they had passed through Cheyenne on the way. And Myka had _not_ asked if Helena had Emily Lake’s memories still; it had seemed too… morbid.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Myka replied to the other woman’s apology. “It’s perfectly okay, Helena. You know, we could always-” she gestured vaguely back they way they’d come, then shrugged. “It’s dark; I don’t think they saw us arriving. They wouldn’t recognize Pete’s car anyway.”

“We are not… skedaddling, a dozen paces to the goal, Myka Bering.” There was no arguing with Helena’s chin when it set like that. Helena took a breath, deeply, quickly, then squared her shoulders. “Righty-ho, then.” 

The next minutes were a flurry of getting two grown-ups, one child, and way too much luggage for an over-night stay, out of the car. “I hate to admit it, but Pete was right,” Myka groaned. “There’s no way we’re going to need all this.”

“I agree,” Helena said, swinging a ridiculously large bag over her shoulder and taking Livia’s hand. “Would this be all, then?”

“Yup,” said Myka, hefting her own (two) bags. “Let’s go, before I remember that I’m not this brave.” They shared a grin made easier by four days’ worth of close company that had gone almost worryingly smoothly, and set out for Bering’s and Sons.

“I _thought_ that was you, kiddo,” Myka’s father called out, stepping out of his shop’s doorway to relieve Myka of the larger of her bags. He frowned in surprise at the sight of who was accompanying her, then shook himself, turned, and preceded them inside. 

“Well, hello Dad,” Myka muttered under her breath as she followed him in. Then her mother came out from behind the corner and hugged her close, and Myka chose to withhold judgment of her father’s until after they’d made introductions, at least.

They were necessary, too. Things were already getting awkward, with her parents staring at Helena like she was an alien in the midst of their bookshelves. 

“Mom, Dad, this is Helena Wells,” she said quickly, and thanked whatever deity was responsible for her mother’s quick recovery when Jean Bering reached out instantly to shake Helena’s proffered hand. 

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Wells.” 

“The pleasure is all mine, Mrs. Bering,” Helena replied, effortless charm twinkling every which way.

“British, eh?” Warren chimed in, taking his turn at shaking hands. “Related to the writer, by any chance?”

Myka almost choked, and, bowing down to pick up Livia, barely caught Helena’s dry “distantly, I believe.” “And this is Livia. Livia, das ist mein Mom und mein Dad.” Yes, her German was coming along nicely, even if she wasn’t quite certain she’d gotten all the cases right. 

“Well hello there, sweetheart,” Jean greeted the kid. “Myka, was that German just then?”

“Um, yeah. Yeah, it was. Long story, Mom.” And to drive the point home, Myka let the other bag land on the floor with a solid ‘plunk’.

“Of course, of course, silly me, leaving you standing like that. Come in, come in; Warren, take their bags, will you-” a trail of apologies and announcements of dinner and tomorrow’s planned activities wound through the shop as they made their way to the staircase at the back. 

“Dinner would be great, Mom,” Myka said, accompanied by furious nodding at eye-level, “Livia is pretty hungry, I’m afraid.” Livia nodded again. ‘Dinner’ (well, any meal designation, really), and ‘hungry’ had been in the kid’s vocabulary practically over night. Myka wasn’t sure whether Pete was to blame or the kid’s apparently continuous appetite, but any circumstance that made communicating with the kid easier was fine by her and not to be looked at too closely.

Dinner turned out to be abundant, at least in terms of food and surreptitious glances from parent to daughter, or to daughter’s stranger friend. Table conversation, not so much. Finally, Myka cracked. 

“Alright.” She speared a hapless carrot and gestured with it. “Seems you’re not willing to ask, so I’ll tell you anyway. Yes, Livia _is_ German, from Germany. And no, she’s not Helena’s daughter – nor mine,” she added quickly when her father’s head shot up. “Helena met Livia’s mother while she was in Germany for a job, and…” and Myka suddenly realized it wasn’t her place to reveal how and where and why, nor to decide just how much. Thankfully, Helena picked up the thread with barely a moment’s pause.

“The child’s mother and I met in mid-September, if I remember correctly,” Helena began slowly. Myka wondered why, for a moment – of course Helena would remember correctly. Then she decided that Helena was probably simply hedging, or maybe trying to find words that Livia wouldn’t understand, or that wouldn’t give too much away to Myka’s parents. Did she even know that Myka had told her parents just where she was working, anyway? “I didn’t know then that she had a daughter,” Helena went on through Myka’s musings. “And I shall not judge the circumstances she must have found herself in to have given the child up for institutional care-” 

Jean made an involuntary motion, eyes wide and sorrowful. “Oh, the poor dear,” she whispered. 

Helena acknowledged the sympathy with a nod and went on, “-and I shall ever regret that I misjudged her at the start. She was… extraordinary. A kind, and brave, soul.”

“And then what happened?” Warren asked with a frown. “How did the kid turn up in your care; why isn’t she with her mother?”

“Because Laura made us her daughter’s guardians,” Helena said.

“What? After knowing you for what, two weeks? No offense, Miss Wells, but that seems pretty… hasty.” Not waiting for Helena’s reaction, Myka’s father turned around to his daughter. “And did she even know _you_ , Myka, or the line of work you’re in?”

“Yes, Dad. She did.” His daughter’s flat delivery made his eyes narrow even more, and return to Helena.

“A brave soul, eh? She died in the course of one of your missions, didn’t she.”

“Oh sweet God.” Jean drew in a hitched breath. “But… well…” her frown was almost as deep as her husband’s, but it carried a different message. “I guess there’s no polite way to ask this, and I do apologize, but… why the both of you?”

“Mom, she…” there was nothing for it. _This_ was the reason they were here; this was the moment. “She knew that I loved Helena. I can only guess, but I think that’s the reason she chose to do what she did.”

“What? What kind of…?” Myka’s father flared, oblivious to his wife’s hushing motions. “Goddamnit, a child is a serious commitment, not something you agree to on a whim, however well-meant.”

“Warren!”

“Mister Bering, I assure you-”

Myka glared at her father. “Dad, there was _nothing_ impulsive about it, from neither of us. I knew Laura only for the shortest time, really, but she did not strike me as the fickle type, and I seriously hope you’re not implying that I, or Helena…” Realization dawned. “Dad, this is not a phase, or a fad, or something. I’ve known Helena for a long time, and believe me, I-”

“How long?” he interrupted. “And how did the two of you meet?”

Helena stood up, suddenly, and walked around the table’s corner to stand behind Myka’s chair, setting her hands on Myka’s shoulders. “Almost three years.” She squeezed slightly at sensing the tension in them. “And, Mister Bering, I’ve loved your daughter from the start.”

Whatever warm feelings rose in Myka at those words were instantly dissipated by the look of outrage on her father’s face. “So _you’re-_ ” he began, pointing a finger.

Myka’s voice, intent and low and clear, stopped him short. “Dad, if you are even _thinking_ of accusing Helena of having seduced me, or, or… or mislead me, or whatever, I swear to God we’ll leave this instant.” 

Silence fell. Myka threw a quick glance at Livia, trying to ensure the kid wasn’t distressed by what, to Myka, was just another Bering dinner table spat but might be so much more frightening to someone who didn’t get the actual contents. Though wide-eyed, Livia didn’t seem to be too troubled, however, and Myka sent a silent prayer to any amenable deity that the kid really hadn’t understood a word of what was being said. “I was drawn to Helena from the day we met, Dad,” Myka continued. “And it took me a while to realize what was happening, and then it took me a while to come to terms with it, and…” she sighed out a breath. “And our line of work, as you put it, isn’t exactly conducive to relationships, is it.” The understatement of her life. 

“ _Your_ line of-” Myka’s mother said tentatively. “So you…” she looked at Helena, something Warren seemed to feel incapable of after Myka’s outburst.

“I work for the same agency that Myka works for,” Helena confirmed.

“As an Englishwoman?” 

“Dad…” Myka sighed, “Helena does have an American passport, but that really is beside the point, you know. What matters is that…” Myka shook her head, grinding her teeth. It was always like that. He never seemed to get it, did he? Her side of things? For once, she needed to make him understand. For once, she needed to find the words to make him see. “This is not a whim, Dad, this is serious; _I_ am serious. This,” she indicated Livia with one hand and grasped Helena’s fingers with the other, “is the most serious I’ve ever been about anything in my entire _life_ , Dad. I wouldn’t be here; _we_ wouldn’t be here, if it wasn’t.”

~~~

“Today has been difficult for you, hasn’t it.” Myka felt Helena step to her side, and nodded, once, quickly, to get it over with. Together, they looked down at Livia’s sleeping face, still flushed and slightly swollen from crying and half-burrowed into a stuffed bunny rabbit.

Things had been tense through the rest of dinner, and afterwards. Myka had practically leapt from the table when she’d sensed that Livia was getting sleepy – which, today, had meant cranky and impatient, and, eventually, teary, and small wonder. A whole day on the road, a strange bedroom, and, not to put too fine a point on it, a previous going-to-bed-routine of what, four days? Three, if you didn’t count that first night in Myka’s room (and really, you couldn’t). Helena had come along as well, just as eager to get away from the loaded atmosphere as Myka had been. 

Myka wouldn’t have minded having Livia with them in the guest room, but her mother had insisted on putting the kid up in Myka’s old bedroom, pointing out how it was still in so many ways a kid’s room (something that Myka hadn’t had the energy to deny, even if it was, arguably, more of a teenager’s room, and an outdated one at that). At least the kid had taken to the mini Farnsworth like a duck to water; if she woke during the night, Livia would know what to do.

Myka sucked a breath in through her teeth, held it for a moment, then let it go in one long, silent flow of air. She looked up to the ceiling as the lights of a passing car painted shadows on it. “Yeah.” After another long, silent moment, she turned to Helena, adding, “thank you. For standing by me through all of this.” She closed her eyes, fighting not to dislodge the tears that had been threatening all evening.

Helena tittered slightly. “Myka, I would brave all nine circles of hell for you; an evening with your parents isn’t that arduous a task.”

“Well, this was,” Myka replied, indicating the sleeping kid. “I mean I get it, right; this must be hard for her, too, but jeez…”

“Children aren’t always roses and rainbows,” Helena agreed with a (much smaller, and smiling) sigh of her own. She was standing close enough for Myka to feel her warmth, but she wasn’t touching – again. For all her outrageous flirting of before, Helena had seemed almost shy after they had moved in together. Of course, a few choice comments and… and _looks_ , had reassured Myka that the attraction was still there, was still mutual; but Helena hadn’t pushed things, and it probably was for the best, right now. Myka felt like a juggler in any case; she wasn’t sure she could have handled sheet-scorching s- well, whatever it was that they were currently avoiding, at the moment.

“Did Christina ever-” Myka stopped and bit her lip, uncertain how to end that question. “How was she at that age?” 

“Certainly equally strong-minded,” Helena said with a dry little smile. “The bedtime war is a constant through all centuries, it would appear.”

“As is the reaction to something exhausting,” Myka chimed in, and damn her if her eyes weren’t brimming again. 

Helena hummed her agreement almost absentmindedly, straightening a corner of Livia’s comforter. She was about to say something, Myka thought, when she turned and her eyes fell on Myka’s face. “Oh, my dearest Myka.” The sudden change in her expression, the concern, the compassion, proved too much. Myka tried for a shrug and an apologetic smile as the tears started to fall, but she was quite sure it turned out grimace. Half-turning, wanting and not wanting to hide, she stood rooted to the spot and had finally settled for hugging herself when she felt a hand on her arm, tugging gently enough to be dismissed if she so desired. 

And she did, and she didn’t, and the conflict did not help her motor functions one single bit, nor did it stop the crying. 

“Myka.” The hand didn’t pull away and didn’t pull stronger. “Will you not let me?”

“I’m not…” the words came out in a quaver, and Myka stopped them immediately, tried to calm them with a breath that she _willed_ not to be a gulp. “I’m not particularly good at that.”

“Oh, typically it involves nothing more difficult than a relaxation of your arms and an acceptance of the offered embrace. I’m positive you could manage that,” Helena said, her delivery so _perfect_ that Myka had no choice but to laugh and do as she’d suggested. And then Helena’s arms closed around her and Helena’s scent was in her nose and Helena’s warmth was in front of her and the laugh became a hiccup became a sob became a long moment of shuddering breaths that buried themselves in a lover’s shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” Myka said when she could. “Long day?” she offered by way of explanation, still loath to raise her head from Helena’s shoulder. She was so… weary. “You know, I think we-”

Helena spoke at the same time. “Perhaps we should-”

Chuckling helped Myka straighten up, finally. “What was that?”

“Well, I don’t wish to appear too forward, but I think we should call it a night,” Helena said with a tilt of her head. “I honestly do not see what we could hope to accomplish if we were to go down and resume our non-conversation with your parents.”

“I was just about to suggest the same thing,” Myka said, quirking her own head and smiling at the concurrence. 

“Well, great minds have ever thought alike.” Helena pulled away slightly, breaking the embrace but keeping one arm around Myka’s waist as they walked out of the room. “I shall make our excuses; you go and warm the bed.” 

Arriving at the top of the stairs, she squeezed Myka’s waist before releasing it completely, and Myka took a step closer, placing her own hands on Helena’s waist in return. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sure I look a mess, and…” and she didn’t want her father to see how upset she was. Her mother, she wouldn’t have minded so much, but…

Helena seemed to get the gist of that; she raised one eyebrow and one corner of her mouth, and said, in tones so unlike her usual flirtations that Myka couldn’t quite believe it for a moment, “You do not look a mess, my love. I would be lying if I said exhaustion and tears hadn’t left their traces, but I would be equally untruthful if I kept from you how beautiful you are to me.” And with a quick rise to her toes, she kissed Myka softly on the cheek, and was halfway down the steps before Myka could so much as draw breath to say something in return.

~~~

“So how did _that_ happen?” Tracy joined Myka at the window. They both looked outside to where Livia was breaking in a swing that Tracy’s kid wouldn’t use for at least another two years, seeing as he or she wasn’t even out of the womb yet.

They’d come here after breakfast; Myka had wanted to check up on Tracy (and the repairs to the nursery). She’d also wanted to get the hell out of her parent’s house, and saying hello to her sister and delivering a replacement sweater set (plus assorted other gifts) had been the perfect excuse. Of course it also meant going through much the same questions again, but at least Tracy was looking at her with curiosity, not accusation.

Myka released a long breath. “It’s a two-part story,” she said, “and part one is kinda long.”

“That would be Helena’s part?” Tracy asked, and Myka nodded. “Well, then tell me just the bit that landed her here, then. With you.”

Myka pondered this for a moment, then settled for, “Well, I’m madly in love with her.” 

“Alright.” Tracy drew out the word in a way that had irritated the goddamn curls out of Myka’s hair when they’d been younger. Present-day, adult, mature Myka just shrugged and waited for her sister to continue, and watched a gleeful Livia swing to completely unsafe heights. “That would be the important bit, I guess,” Tracy said finally, with a poke to Myka’s ribs. “And part two is where Livia comes in?”

“Yup. And that one really only started Tuesday, so it’s not that long at all.”

Tracy whistled, then frowned. “But… you must have known that Helena had a daughter?”

“Of course I did,” Myka said, on autopilot because at that moment, Livia was rising over the swing’s _crossbar_ , for heaven’s sake- “but Christina is dead and…” And she realized what she was saying even as she saw Helena motioning for the kid to tone it down a little. “And you weren’t talking about Christina.”

Tracy looked stricken. “No,” she whispered, “I wasn’t.” She paused for a moment, then went on, “So Helena…”

“Helena met Livia on the same day that I did,” Myka said, hoping that ignoring the obvious question would put Tracy off it, too. “And she’s not Livia’s mother. And it gets a little complicated after that, I’m afraid.”

“So simplify.” Tracy crossed her arms over a belly that did seem much larger than two additional weeks of pregnancy should warrant, but then, Myka was certainly no expert on that, was she? As to the matter of simplifying things…

“Trace,” she said, choosing a tangent that seemed appropriate, if not really revealing, “it doesn’t matter how long you’ve known someone if you love them, right?” She barely turned to look for Tracy’s nod, keeping her eyes on two cheerful figures outside instead. “I couldn’t imagine a day without either of them anymore.”

“ _You_ got it _bad_ , sis,” Tracy said, poking her again and smirking like the blazes. 

Myka batted her sister’s finger away, fighting – and losing – to keep her own grin off her face. “Yeah,” she said finally, succumbing, and Tracy grinned right back. 

Then Tracy grew serious again, even frowned. “Still it’s, you know, _weird_ , to think of you as a lesbian-”

“Trace!”

“Well, aren’t you? Myka, that’s a woman out there, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Tracy cast a sidelong glance at Myka’s glowing cheeks, then poked her _again_. “Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed, sis. _Don’t_ tell me you haven’t- what’s it with you, anyway? _How_ long did you say you know her?”

“Tracy!” If her sister knew how to aggravate her, well, so did Myka; and she had among her arsenal a myriad of ways of saying her sister’s name that would do the trick. Anything rather than tell Tracy she was right, anyway. So what if nothing had happened between Helena and Myka yet that would at least technically make Myka a bisexual person? That certainly was no business of her sister’s. 

Luckily, Livia chose that precise moment to look across the lawn and wave for Myka to join them.


	11. Chapter 11

The drive back seemed the most relaxing part of the whole goddamn weekend. 

Tracy had called their parents over for dinner that night, insisting that Myka, Helena and Livia stay with her instead of at the Berings’, and the evening had at least been civil, if not comfortable. Jean had warmed to Helena when she’d offered pregnancy advice to Tracy, and when Warren had tried to steer ‘Myka’s colleague’, as he insisted on calling her, towards second helpings, Myka had chosen to see it as a peace offering of sorts. Well, maybe the beginning of one. 

Still and all, she’d taken a long and relieved breath after they’d said their goodbyes this morning.

Myka was certain they wouldn’t make it before ten, maybe even midnight. They took turns driving and sitting in the back with Livia, and finally, after it grew dark, Livia fell asleep in her seat and Helena climbed through the gap to sit in front again. Myka briefly debated to tell her off for the stunt (she could have pulled to the curb, after all), but for reasons that had nothing to do at all with the impossibly sensuous way Helena moved, she couldn’t find words.

And Helena, damn her, realized full well how dry Myka’s mouth suddenly seemed to be. And, damn her, took extra long to settle into her seat. When she started to speak, though, her voice seemed almost dreamy. “Your father’s question of when we met had me thinking, you know,” she said.

“You said you loved me from the start,” Myka supplied, just in case Helena didn’t remember. And it was nice to bring it up again.

“And I did. Ever since I first laid eyes on you – and in the halls of my own home, too – I was drawn to you, Myka. Something about you…” she didn’t finish the thought.

“You caressed my hands when I cuffed you.” And what a wealth of half-formed thoughts and notions that motion had triggered. 

Helena chuckled, probably well aware of what Myka hadn’t said. “You noticed.”

“I did,” Myka replied, more nonchalantly than she felt. “So, what? You were flirting with me even then?” she continued, in much the same vein. “And here I thought that started with your use of a grappler gun.”

“That worked as intended, then?” If anyone could do light and teasing, it was Helena Wells.

“Depends on what it was you were intending,” Myka managed.

“To sweep you off your feet.” A beat. “In a variety of ways.”

God. “Um, yes,” Myka said. “That worked.” But thinking about the grappler gun lead to thinking about how she’d basically torn the locket out of Helena’s hands, and how mortified she’d been, and how Artie had exploded at the debriefing, and then she couldn’t help thinking about Helena’s second attempt of redeeming herself, and about what had happened in Egypt, and Yosemite, and Cheyenne, Wyoming, and apparently right back home at the Warehouse, too; and then she couldn’t help pulling to the curb, couldn’t help the heaves that threatened. “God, Helena.” She tipped her forehead onto white-knuckled hands clenched around the wheel and fought for even breaths. Let the past be in the past, right? “Do you ever try to think,” she said when she could, “that if none of it had happened, the two of us wouldn’t be here right now, having this conversation?”

“It so happens,” Helena said in a voice that told Myka she knew very well what Myka had meant by ‘it’, “that I am trying to do exactly that exactly this moment.” She sighed deeply. “It is a… a thought.” 

“A thought.” Myka rotated her head to look at her. “A thought?”

“One that seems almost too immense to grasp,” Helena added.

Somewhere, Myka found a grin. “H.G. Wells can’t get her head around a thought? That’s a first.”

Helena huffed slightly, but returned a smile. “It does encompass my entire life, you know. Including a century in bronze. But… well. It’s a thought. If all my past steps and missteps have led me here…” she drew a deep breath, “well, ‘here’ isn’t such a terrible place to be, is it?” 

“I should hope not,” Myka said softly. “Tracy seemed far more relaxed with it than my parents did,” she added, voicing a thought that had been vying for attention all day.

“I think Charles was just as scandalized as everyone else was, back then,” Helena shrugged. “It’s good to know some things have changed. Not that I ever minded much-” her smile was decidedly wicked, “-but it does make things easier if you don’t have to ruin your reputation before you do what you like.”

Myka nodded, cheek still on the back of her hands. “I never was into women, you know. Never even considered I might be, so I guess I really wasn’t, I mean I would have noticed, right?” She was babbling again. She silently cursed herself, then tried to focus. “When you said many of your lovers had been men…” Now where had that come from?

“You couldn’t possibly believe,” Helena sighed and lolled her head backwards, “how often I have wished I had not said those words that day.”

“No, Myka said quickly, straightening and turning fully towards the other woman. “Don’t! I mean… it _was_ a brilliant line-” they shared a smirk, “-and it… it got me… uh, thinking.”

Helena’s eyebrows rose. “Well,” she said, “in that case, I shall certainly cease my wishing.”

“It _was_ one step that led to this,” Myka agreed. “Us.” She sighed again, almost wistfully this time. “Whatever ‘we’ are. I mean you still haven’t kissed me yet.” She refrained from mentioning Tracy’s glee at the very idea. She refrained from crossing her arms to make an even better point of it. She didn’t refrain from looking at Helena, drinking in her features. She did try to disguise it as a disapproving glare, though.

The light of a passing car illuminated said features in a flash of stark white – still, Myka was reasonably sure it wasn’t the reason for the sparkle in Helena’s eyes. “You do realize there is a child sleeping in the back seat,” Helena said.

“As if that would ever stop you,” Myka replied, just as dryly. 

A car passing by from ahead of them caused Myka to squint her eyes almost shut; when she re-opened them, Helena’s face was inches, fractions of them, really, from hers. “True,” she purred, causing Myka’s breath to stop. “But,” she said, causing Myka’s _heart_ to stop. She couldn’t do that, could she? Not again? 

She could. “We shall never make it home this way, Agent Bering.” Her tone of voice should be… there should be laws against her tone of voice. And no, Myka would not think about what the legal system, any legal system, had to say about sexual harassment, because the term signified unwillingness and oh _God_ , was she willing. 

“But-” _oh crap, did that squeak really come from my vocal chords?_ Myka swallowed and tried again, “But, you know, once we’re,” she cleared her throat, “home…”

“Once we’re home,” Helena echoed, sounding quite… definite.

“I just hope for your sake that that is a promise, Wells.”

“Then, for my sake, it shall be.”

~~~

“Well.”

“Well.” Myka felt intensely nervous, and somewhat irritated at herself for it. She’d all but wrestled a promise of… of _this_ , from Helena, in the car, and here they were, and Helena certainly didn’t seem to have any qualms. She was standing there, calm as you please and dressed for bed; well, they both were, and it had taken Myka basically three times as long as it usually did, and here they were, an arm’s length and a mile of tension apart. Myka swallowed. It wasn’t as if she were uncertain how to proceed in general; she wasn’t even uncertain where and how she wanted this to end, but when it came to the specific, to the steps in between standing here and… um, well-

“Myka,” Helena said, and Myka’s eyes jumped to those moving lips, “there is no need for hurry.”

“I know. I know! You’ve been so good about that, letting me… sorta… set my own pace with this, and…” Myka swallowed again. “And this is bloody ridiculous, right, I mean I _want_ this, and I’m not a teenager, this is not my first kiss, it’s just… it’s just that I… God, I think I think too much,” she concluded meekly, gesturing in what she felt was a decidedly ungraceful way, especially when compared to the _fluidity_ of Helena’s hand coming up to catch hers. She felt fingers start to doodle designs on the back of it and broke out in goosebumps and she _was_ acting like a teenager now and Helena still wasn’t coming any closer, damn her.

She stared at their touching hands like they were strangers’. Surely a stranger, faced with the sight of Helena bloody G. (what did the initial stand for, anyway?) Wells in a silk chemise (again, if grey this time), surely that stranger would find it in herself to start at least doodling designs of her own into a palm? If not actually step forward?

_She said she loved me, and… and I could touch her then._

_So think back to how that felt, and do it again._

Helena loved her. Helena reacted to the thumb grazing her palm. Helena stared at their hands just like _she_ had, just now. Helena’s lips were parted. Would she feel Helena’s breath moving over them if she touched them? Would they feel- God, they _did_ feel soft, and so warm, but that was because her own finger was icy, but that wasn’t a bad thing apparently because she _could_ feel a breath being sucked in and oh dear God, Helena wasn’t looking at their hands any longer and there was such _raw_ desire in those brown eyes that it drove her almost to her _knees_ and-

Myka heard her name being whispered, and however small the sound was, it slipped easily through the ringing in her ears and past all conscious thought and right to whatever part of the brain was responsible for switching off its higher functions (she really should remember) and there was her name again and a hand pulling hers upwards and letting go and _trembling_ on her cheek and burninglovingbeautiful brown eyes moving every which way across her face like they were drinking from the Gods’ own _cups_ with every bit of skin they grazed and how could this feel so much like touching when they weren’t even and there was breath on her lips that wasn’t hers and there were lips on her lips that weren’t hers and oh sweet, _sweet-_

~~~

_She moves beneath you like water and fire and the sinful joys of angels. You do not marvel that you still know what to do – you had been quite certain you still remembered. You do not marvel that what you do takes her to where it does – you had been quite certain that it would. You do marvel that it affects you so, when it rarely, if ever, did before. But before is so long ago that you are not certain you still remember, much less need to. Before refers to another you, to you before, you before her._

_She sighs out, so softly, no more than half of your name before her breath catches, and though you tease her that that is quite the opposite of where you are planning to take her, your heart sings with each benediction her voice makes of inferno (your name). Then words fail her for good and you shiver when her breaths stop halfway through and restart at your insistence, growl when her fingers grasp (flail) (soothe) your shoulder (hand) (thigh) (back), burn when her abandon attempts to meld her body into yours._

~~~

Myka gasped, gasped again, and laughed. Well, there was so much of… of _everything_ welling up inside her that it was either that, or cry, or burst, and of the three, laughter seemed the most appropriate reaction to what she was coming down from. It came out a breathy, low, sensuous sound, and she delighted in seeing Helena’s reaction to it as the other woman settled into Myka’s arms. “You…” she said feebly, word and chuckle vying for the same bout of air, “you are… that was…” she laughed again, for the sheer joy of it. “I don’t have _words_ for what that was.”

“I could think of a few.” Oh, Helena’s purr. Helena’s smile. Helena’s lips, that had-

“No.”

Helena’s eyebrow, arching so perfectly. Helena’s eyes, wicked, gleaming, sparkling. “No?”

“No,” Myka confirmed. “No, no, and no. Less words, Agent Wells, more-”

“Action?” Helena’s eyebrows (both of them this time), furiously mugging. 

Myka couldn’t help but guffaw, pressing her hands to her mouth in mortification a fraction of a second later. “This was such a bad idea.”

A head came up on an elbow and looked down at Myka, smug and amused and a little disheveled. “That does not correspond to my impression, Agent Bering.” 

Torn between the options of snorting another laugh or kissing Helena Wells senseless, Myka managed, “sound proofing, Helena,” in a strangled voice.

“Ah,” Helena nodded, “but Livia usually sleeps quite deeply.”

“I _was_ ,” Myka replied, with as much dignity as she was capable of, “talking about the rest of them.”

“Well, it’s not as if they hadn’t imagined our bedroom activities long before there ever were any.” 

“Helena!” Myka covered her eyes, then slid her hand over her mouth to groan into it. “You’re probably right. God, they’ll never let us live this down.”

Helena rolled over a little and propped her chin on Myka’s shoulder. “If their teasing buys me this, my love,” she trailed a lazy hand from Myka’s collarbone down to… as far as it would reach, resulting in a gasp, a shiver, a glare, “then I shall gladly bear it for the rest of my life.”

To which there was really nothing Myka could say, was there. Then again, speech was not the only option of requital.

~~~

_She rebounds laughing, laughing!, and her laughter has ever been capable of nurturing you through the remnants of forever. Then (amorous) (beauteous) (precious) Myka turns to attend to you and though you find yourself tentative (resisting) (petrified) at first, she is relentless (loving) and after a while you find yourself thinking that the remnants of forever seem too short a time to be spending at your beloved’s mercy and after a little more of what she insists on doing you do not get past the first half of her name any longer and while you try to think of appropriate syllables to follow it with, she is pushing the root of her hand between your teeth to silence sounds you had not noticed, and-_

_you shall apologize for the marks tomorrow._

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Et voilà, here we are. No teaser for the next part; I do have a few ideas down, but no more than that... *cough* Hallowe'en *cough* Leena *cough* Christmas *cough* 
> 
> I do hope you enjoyed this part - do tell. If you didn't - do tell also, I can only improve. 
> 
> Thanks for stopping by!


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